Arrow of Time
by Ludi
Summary: Sequel to House of Cards and Twist of Fate. In his quest to save Rogue from Sinister, Remy is led to a terrifying inevitability, which sets in motion a devastating and inescapable chain of events. Can he, Rogue and Rachel cheat Fate and save the future? DoFP (comicverse), dark fic.
1. Entrapment

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** After a spurt of creativity, _Arrow of Time_ is now done - though largely unedited. What the hell, I am posting it. I am posting it, goddammit! After nearly 9 years of my life the _House of Cards_ cycle has come to a close - and while the Rogue and Gambit from this universe have declared their satisfaction that this is _done_, they'll always have more stories to tell. In the meantime, I'll let them walk off into their sunset. They've earned their due. :)

I'd just like to thank everyone who has shown an interest in this story over the years. Writing this has been the most beautiful torture, and I'm sure I can't do justice to the story my muses wanted me to write, but I hope you will all still enjoy it anyway. It has been a huge part of my life, and probably will continue to be so. When this is done, there will be other spin-offs I am hoping to post, an interactive site that will tie all the plot points to the 616 universe etc., and hopefully illustrated books, if anyone is interested. In the meantime, I hope you like this, nervous as I am to be posting. And since this is unedited, all constructive crit, suggestions and of course reviews are most humbly welcome.

Thanks to all my readers, past, present and future; and much love from,

-Ludi x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART ONE : GAMBIT_  
**

**(1) - Entrapment -**

A hundred years ago – maybe more – a young girl had written about this.

It was a story, a story of three people whose lives would converge and diverge, weaving in and out like threads in a great tapestry, inextricably woven together, pulling apart only to intertwine once more.

The girl spent a lifetime and more unpicking at the lives of these three favourite characters. Picking, teasing, worrying at their paltry, puzzling existences. Her pencil would chase their every step, her brush would shape their every movement, her pen would guide their every word.

With time, she grew to love them.

She grew to believe that they were _with_ her somehow, these characters with no names, these imaginary friends who seemed so vivid and true and yet she knew did not live.

Not yet, anyhow.

They coloured the darkness that shrouded her, their faces penetrated her blindness. She did not need to see to read them. The girls she had gone to school with had favoured fairytales and romances, but she… she read _life_. And it was far more scintillating than any fiction.

Her little triumvirate accompanied her through all the pain and the suffering and the loneliness. They grew up with her, and whilst they grew to lead their own lives, the girl never felt them to be far away.

The man and the woman became lovers, as she had always known they would, even before they did.

And the third one, the one that the young girl had come to think of as her especial friend, the one who was as lonely and scared as she was… Well, she grew from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. She became a _phoenix_.

It gave the little girl hope.

And there came a point where their stories all diverged. Where all hope seemed lost.

The man slipped back into shadows.

The woman ran off to chase ghosts.

And the phoenix-child, the starchild… Well, she disappeared. Completely. She disappeared and the little girl saw her no more.

The girl never understood why her friend had gone, but she recorded it all faithfully, as she had become accustomed to.

She opened up the thirteenth volume of her diaries, to the next blank double page spread. She took out her pencil and drew a triangle. In the left corner, she drew the man, with the nasty shadow still beside him. In the right corner she drew the woman, standing next to a ruined steel building. And at the apex she drew the starchild, standing amid the chaos and the destruction with the entire world upon her shoulders; and the little girl felt sad. She wanted to reach out into the future, to pluck them all up and hold them together in a warm embrace. She wanted to tell them that it was okay, that they would make the right decisions.

She took out her watercolours, her brushes. She painted the figures with the fastidious concentration of every artistic child. And when she was done, she looked down at her work with sightless eyes, her mouth twisted with grim pride.

She looked at the starchild, and for the first time since she'd started having these visions, these dreams of the future, a name came to her.

She whispered it out loud, held it close to her, cherished it as she would cherish the name of a beloved friend.

"_Rachel._"

-oOo-

Rachel Summers staggered blindly through wreckage and debris, step by painful step, hardly knowing that one foot followed the other.

The smoke all but choked her; tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away furiously. The smoke was an excuse. It was an excuse to weep for everything she had lost on this day, this one day that had paid with the lives of so many. All she owned now she held in her own two hands, cradled protectively in her arms. She wasn't going to let go of it now. She wasn't going to let go of the only thing she had left.

Kate Pryde weighed like a ton of bricks; and yet Rachel hardly felt the weight of the older woman who was the most precious thing in the world right now. To Rachel, it seemed that her own legs were heavier; that with every step she took, she was being pummelled another inch into the ground. But she could not afford to stop; not now. Everyone else was dead but her, and she was Kate's last defence. More than that, she was the last barrier between this hell and a future that was worth having. If she failed in this last duty to her fallen comrades, she would have failed utterly. She would have failed Time itself.

Somehow she managed to stumble into a small alcove that had been created by a fallen-in building and a crumpled-in mess of high security fencing. Concrete and metal tore at her clothes and her skin, but she barely heeded the sting of pain. She hunkered down in the niche, refusing to let go of Kate, wrapping her arms around her friend as though about a small child.

"It's gonna be okay," she murmured soothingly in the woman's ear, even though she knew that she could not hear her; perhaps the words were more for her own benefit than anyone else. "It's gonna be okay."

She buried her face in Kate's shorn locks, trembled in the darkness, dried the wetness of her eyes in her hair.

She had felt them die. Every single one. Magnus, Colossus, Storm. Franklin.

She'd felt them all in her mind, and the only thing stopping her from fully accepting the agony of it was the fact that – above everything else, above even her own life – she must preserve Kate's. She must preserve Kate's.

But here, in the darkness, with the world crumbling about her, with not a single soul left in the world to her, she was beginning to feel it. She was beginning to feel that her heart had been torn to shreds.

And that was the way it was.

Everyone she loved died on her.

Her mom, her dad, Xavier, her friends… Franklin.

Franklin.

He'd shown her what it was to love.

That meant something profound and she didn't know how to express it, nor the fact that he was now gone. His death rent at the very core of her and she clung to Kate because there was no one else to cling to, there was no one else to comfort her and tell her it was going to be okay, even if he was never going to come back.

A Sentinel lumbered past and she froze, instinctively trying to make herself as small as she could. The only thing preventing her from being caught was the small nullifier Logan had managed to give her, and she could only hope that Kate would not be noticed because she didn't have one.

And where was Logan? She wasn't sure.

All she knew was that somehow they had been betrayed, and that the Sentinels had been ready and waiting for them as soon as their plan got underway. Her mind whirled through all the many faces she knew had been in on their scheme, skittered over them with a manic confusion. She couldn't settle on any one person that could have _done_ this – it was too much for her brain to comprehend. What was the use in thinking about it if she could die at any moment? For Kate's sake she had to focus on one thing – and that was staying alive.

She squeezed her eyes shut and went into that little place at the back of her mind where everything was safe and warm and far away from all the hurt in the world.

And somewhere inside that small sanctuary she curled away from it all, dozing fitfully in the place between wakefulness and sleep.

She was jolted back into her body an indeterminable amount of time later as Kate suddenly began to stir in her arms. Rachel pulled back slightly, her breath caught in her throat as she searched the face of the older woman, seeing her eyes flickering into wakefulness. Her thoughts scrabbled to comprehend what this meant. Kate Pryde was awakening – yet nothing had changed.

"Kate!" Rachel breathed in mixed confusion and relief as the older woman's eyes slowly began to focus. "Thank God you're still alive…!"

Kate's daze darted about her, this way and that; her forehead creased in consternation.

"Where are we?" she mumbled, the words coming with the texture of one unused to speaking for a long time. "Did it work?"

Rachel stared at her. Her heart caught like a leaden lump in her chest. She could barely speak herself.

"Nothing's changed," she explained breathlessly. "Everything's the same. Did you do it, Kate? Did you stop Senator Kelly from being killed?"

No response came from Kate's lips. Her eyes went wide, and, her wits now fully returned to her, she struggled to her feet, gazing about her like a cornered animal. As she did so, her expression slowly turned to dismay.

"It's not possible!" she gasped, her voice cracking with disbelief. Her eyes fixed wildly onto Rachel's face. "I – I prevented it! I stopped Senator Kelly from being killed! I phased through Destiny as she was about to attack – knocked her off balance… Kelly was alive when I left! Why? Why is nothing different?!"

Even as the words left her mouth a sick realisation seemed to fall upon her. She suddenly went very still, whispered; "Piotr…?"

There was a question in the name – a question that she could not bear to articulate in any other way. Rachel heard it; she couldn't face it. Her own loss seemed small in comparison to that of the woman before her. She hung her head, the weight of the answer hanging heavily upon her. It was an answer that could not be hidden; Kate read it in Rachel's face as though it had been writ large. The scream that came from her lips was the most awful sound Rachel had ever heard. It stripped her breath away, cast her down lower than Ahab's beatings, than Rogue's betrayal. She turned her head aside with tears in her eyes. Something had gone wrong, and she didn't understand it. More disturbing was the news Kate had brought her. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that the killer of Senator Kelly was none other than Destiny. Rogue's foster mother. The one who could see the future, and presumably, make moves to avoid the pain and confusion that now surrounded them – that she herself appeared to have wrought.

She heard it then – the crunch of a clumsy footstep on rubble. Her Hound senses kicked in mechanically, and she drew the distraught Kate deeper into the niche, hoping against hope that the woman's scream had not been heard, yet knowing instinctively such a thing was unlikely.

"I know you're there!" a hushed, familiar voice sounded from nearby – it was unmistakably Tanya Trask. "So there's no point in hiding, Rachel!"

Rachel bit her lip, weighing it up carefully. Tanya obviously knew she was there; and when she cast out her mind, she saw that the girl was alone, and that her only intention was to talk. It was only for that reason that she slowly stepped out from the recess.

Sure enough Tanya was there, a little distance away, atop a small pile of debris, steadying herself against the corner of a building. There was a look of relief on her face as Rachel finally came into view.

"What are you doing here?" Rachel asked her heatedly. "You're supposed to be back at the Brotherhood headquarters…"

A dismissive sneer crossed Tanya's face, changing her features from pretty to ugly in a moment.

"That's what Logan told me to do," she replied acerbically. "But I'm not the little girl he thinks I am. Besides, I _had_ to be here. I _had_ to protect my investment."

She jumped down from the mound of broken fencing and concrete, and Rachel digested her words with a sinking feeling of foreboding.

"_Investment_?" she repeated incredulously. "What are you talking—"

"_You_, Rachel," Tanya cut in, regarding the other with unwavering eyes. "I took a chance in setting all this up. I told daddy not to harm you, but sometimes it can be difficult to keep those Sentinels under control…"

"_What?!_" Rachel blurted, almost choking on the shock. "You – _you_ did this?!"

Tanya nodded without any trace of guilt; her expression was solemn.

"Of course. How else could I get your attention?"

If Rachel had been surprised before, nothing could have prepared her for the matter-of-fact calmness that Tanya now presented her with. She began to speak several times, her voice refusing to come out.

"_My_ attention?" The words finally emerged, but they barely seemed to come from her. Tanya nodded.

"Yes. Why? Would you have listened to me if I had spoken to you, face to face? Not to mention, the others would all have been listening in on us, and I couldn't have that." Her countenance darkened. "I couldn't have anyone else interfering. Now that we're alone together, we can discuss things rationally – just the two of us. Don't worry – I'll keep you safe. Well, safer than you would have been back in the internment centre anyhow."

Rachel almost laughed in a giddy head-rush. The idea that any of this was rational, or _could_ be rational, was patently ridiculous.

"All right," she conceded with what was false bravado. "You've got my attention, Tanya. But what about the others? They're going to the Sentinels' mainframe. They're going to destroy it and switch all the Sentinels off for good. So why don't you run and tell _that_ to your precious 'daddy'?"

It was a bluff – she knew all the others were dead, apart from Logan, and she didn't even know where he was. She didn't think Tanya knew that though – which made her all the more surprised when the girl burst into laughter.

"Destroy the Sentinels?" she hooted derisively. "That's impossible! It's the Master Mold programme that controls them; and even if you destroyed the mainframe the programme would just keep running, daddy fixed it to replicate when it's attacked, just like a virus. He's got several mainframes up round the country, and if you downed one, Master Mold would just migrate through the net till it found a new home. That's why," she added bitterly, "the Sentinels _can't_ die, not _easily_ anyhow. Daddy modelled them on a smart swarm – Master Mold's the queen bee, the Sentinels are the drones. Even if Logan and the others got to the mainframe, the Master Mold program would just migrate – the drones would just warn her."

Rachel barely had a moment to digest this new and troubling information when a low growl from beside her caught her off guard. It was Kate, leaping out from her hiding place like a wounded lion from its den, springing at the unwitting Tanya with a shrill, savage shriek, clawing at the air with her nails.

Unawares Tanya may have been taken, but she recovered her wits faster than thought. The psychic bolt snapped out like a gunshot, clapping Kate, mid-air, between the eyes; the woman slapped to the floor in an ungainly heap.

"_Stop that!_"

Instinct drove Rachel forward into a lunge at the girl, who brought her arms up in self-defence; their tussle was brief – Rachel had been a Hound and this girl, this pretender… she knew nothing. It was only a matter of seconds before Tanya was locked in Rachel's uncompromising grip, struggling and spluttering for breath.

"Let me go!" she croaked hoarsely over the crook of Rachel's elbow. "I'm warning you! My dad's not far behind, he'll have you killed on sight!"

But the words only served to tighten Rachel's grip.

"Nice try," she hissed viciously. "But I'm worth more to Trask and his cronies alive than dead! And now that I have access to my powers, he should be more worried about the fact that _I_ can kill _him_ on sight. _And_ you, all at the same time." Nevertheless somewhere at the back of her mind she knew that running into Trask was something best avoided; and so, gathering all the strength she had left into her underfed muscles, she dragged the flailing Tanya back into the niche. She knew she was leaving Kate dangerously exposed, but she didn't have a choice. Tanya was the priority, and she wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind to be making good decisions anyway.

"What are you going to do?" Tanya rasped; even now there was still the old brazen grit to her voice. "Kill me?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Rachel asked, her mind racing, the rational part of her trying to fight through the red mist that had descended over her, making her tremble with rage, seriously tempting her with the idea of snapping the other girl's neck like a twig. It was infinitely doable; infinitely easy. It was taking an inhuman effort just to stop herself doing it.

"Because," Tanya was replying, gasping for breath, "I need you to _help _me! _Please_!"

Rachel was stunned. She stuttered with anger and disbelief.

"_Help_ you?" she finally managed to spit out, and, "_Yes!_" was the girl's desperate reply – desperate enough for there to be a strain of truth in it. Rachel heard it. She could easily have ignored it. All her years as a Hound had taught her to laugh in the face of weakness; and yet, as she heard it now in Tanya Trask, it touched the humanity in her that remained intact. With barely a thought she released Tanya from her headlock, and the girl dropped to the floor on her hands and knees, sputtering, retching into the rubble.

"Are you trying to tell me," Rachel began through gritted teeth, "that you did all _this_ because you wanted my _help_? Are you fucking _crazy_?"

There was no response. Tanya continued to cough and splutter noisily, and Rachel took the opportunity to scan her mind briefly, so subtly that it barely left a ghost of a touch on the other girl's mind; and what she saw, in that short window of time, was that Tanya was telling the truth, in her own fashion. What she also saw was a fractured mind, like broken shards of glass clinging desperately to a mirror frame.

"_Stop that!_" Tanya suddenly barked at her with such venom that Rachel was taken aback; she stared as the girl looked up at her with thunder in her eyes. "Stop scanning my mind!"

There was a psychic backlash that was almost physical; Rachel took an involuntary step back, stunned that her opponent had even managed to detect the featherstroke of her psyche.

"How is that possible?" she whispered, frightened for the first time by this child-woman that now stood before her. Tanya grimaced bitterly.

"What? That I can sense every single thing you do?" Her voice was still hoarse, but was now cold and imperious. "I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with the fact that we share the same powers. That day, when I was practising the astral projections and we first met, I was so shit at it I couldn't see _anything_ on the astral plane. But I saw _you_. And I didn't know why you stood out to me so much back then, but now… now I think I'm starting to get it…"

It was falling again. That red mist, clouding Rachel's vision, her judgement. She couldn't get any words out; and Tanya continued in that same driving tone.

"We can _both _go to that place. _The Timestream_, you called it. The only difference is, I can't control it. I'm weak and you're strong. You have to teach me how to control my powers. You have to teach me to be as good as you."

Rachel was trembling now, the world closing in about her head, tunnelling in around her.

"Why the hell should I teach you anything," she growled, "after everything you've done? Do you even _know_ what you've done? The people your actions have _killed_?"

The list of names, the row of faces paraded one by one before her mind's eye, and when she got to Franklin – Franklin, who'd deserved life so much more than _she_ had – she almost choked. But Tanya seemed not to have heard; either that, or the question was of no consequence to her.

"If you come back with me," she said instead, in a voice that was too peremptory to be wheedling, "back to my father's labs, we can work on it together. You can teach me how to control my powers, and then I can go back in time. I can stop my daddy from building the Sentinels, I can make him love me again. If I make him love me, he won't want to make machines that kill mutants. I can stop all of this from happening! But I need your help, Rachel. I don't know how to do this on my own."

Tanya was mad. Insane. Rachel could have reached out into her psyche – perhaps fitted back together the broken pieces of her mind. But she didn't dare to reach out and probe her again. Tanya, it seemed, was capable of matching her, even if she lacked control. And that somehow made her more dangerous.

"You're crazy," she returned in a low voice, trying reason where she knew force would fail. "Don't you get what happened? It didn't work. Kate went back in time, she prevented Senator Kelly's death and _nothing's changed here_. I don't know why it didn't work but it _didn't_. You'll never be able to change the future, Tanya. You'll never be able to make your dad love you."

She paused, seeing Kate stirring once more in the background. Tanya, however, was too incensed to notice.

"It _will_ work!" Trask's daughter seethed. "It _has_ to work! Kate must've done something wrong! What does _she_ know about our time powers?! You shouldn't've trusted her to do things _right_! I know that if we do things _together_, Rachel, we'll achieve great things! We'll save mutants! Don't you want to be a part of that?"

Rachel tried not to look at Kate, who was now getting unsteadily to her feet over Tanya's shoulder. She willed herself into a tentative calm.

"You don't care about mutants," she observed coldly to the younger woman. "You only care about yourself. You only want your dad to love you. But I'll tell you something right now – you can't _make_ anyone love you. You can go back in time and drive yourself crazy trying to make things perfect, trying to make him care. Preventing a murder is easy in comparison. Instilling love in another is just about the hardest thing in the world, and you will fail."

Kate was mere yards away from Tanya now. Rachel's words had had the desired effect – Tanya's eyes went wide, her face was bleached of all colour, her eyes blazed with the cold flame of madness. With an animal cry she lunged forward at Rachel; but, just at the same moment, Kate did the same, her arms grasping the girl from behind, grappling her back as Tanya shrieked like a beast.

"_Go, Rachel!_" Kate screamed as she fought to keep the girl down. "You're our only hope now! Go back into the Timestream, figure out why it didn't work and change it! Bring back Piotr! Bring back my babies! _Go!_"

A moment of hesitation froze Rachel on the spot, for the merest split second as she realised what Kate was asking her to do. And then, that fraction of a second over, she set her jaw and made her decision.

She thought of Franklin, she thought of her friends, of Xavier, of her mom and dad.

And in a moment she had blinked out. Disappeared, perhaps forever, into the Timestream.

Tanya screamed an inarticulate howl of pure rage, but Kate held on as though for dear life. Tanya was strong; but the older woman was far stronger.

"_Let me go_!" Tanya raged. "You have no idea what you've _done_!"

Kate Pryde ground her teeth with the effort. She had expected Tanya to give in sooner, but her fury showed no signs of abating. There was only one thing for it. Kate began to phase the two of them through the rubble at their feet, locking both herself and the flailing Tanya in a concrete embrace. It was the only sure way she knew of keeping Tanya in one place for good.

"Sorry," Kate grunted against the girl's wild struggles, "but I can't let you get away with this. Even if it means a Sentinel comes and gets you. You're staying right here."

And Tanya turned her furious gaze on the older woman, her eyes flashing with loathing and disdain.

"_No one_ can hold me!" she screeched and, just like Rachel had done before her, she blinked out of existence, leaving Kate grasping thin air.

In the following stunned silence she barely heard Logan finally coming up behind her.

"What the _fuck_ was _that!_" he exclaimed, having just seen the tail end of Tanya's disappearance. Kate turned to him, her ears ringing, her heart hammering in her chest, the adrenaline crashing violently through her veins.

"Tanya," she answered in a weak voice. "She has Rachel's powers. Her chronoskimming powers. She can travel through time too."

Logan gaped.

"_What_? She some kinda mimic?"

But Kate shook her head slowly.

"I… I don't know…"

It all came crashing down around her then. There was an audibility to it, a _snap,_ that had her reeling. Her senses went into free fall; her knees almost buckled and Logan, alarmed, caught her.

"It didn't work," she moaned into his shoulder. "Logan, _it didn't work_!"

He said nothing, merely put his arms about her. She wasn't sure if he even knew how many of the others were dead. Layers of pain gripped her, swathed in a protective coating of numbness. She felt it all heaving beneath; a single touch, a single prod, and she knew it would all come flooding out and she would fold completely.

"Where's Rachel?" she heard him ask at last, and she looked up at him, tears standing in her eyes as she fought to hold them back.

"I told her to go back into the Timestream," she almost wailed. "I told her to try and make things _right._ And then that Trask girl… She must've gone after her! What've we done, Logan?! What if Tanya _kills_ Rachel? What if we don't have any chances left?!"

She couldn't hold it back then. It all came cascading out of her in a torrent, all the many years of loss magnified in this single day where she seemed to have thrown away more than all those years put together.

"It's my fault," she sobbed into his chest. "I agreed to go ahead with this and now everyone's dead and it was all for nothing!"

And he shushed her gently, ran his fingers through her shorn locks, comforting her when he knew it was impossible to do so.

"It's not your fault, Kate," he assured her softly, and she had never heard such a depth of sadness in his voice before. "It's not your fault. It was what we _all _wanted. We tried. And we failed."

He touched her wet cheeks, lifted her face to look into his and with a certainty she didn't feel he said:

"Keep hopin', Kate. Rachel will come back. And if Destiny's predictions are anythin' t' go by, she'll make things _right_."

-oOo-


	2. Truth

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Thanks to my dear reviewers for taking the time to make feedback on the first chapter! Much appreciated, as always! :) In answer to the lovely **sugahroc_ - _**yes, Rogue's absorption of Tanya did not run very deep, but my thought was also that Tanya has also got so used to disguising her fragile state of mind from others that Rogue would not have noticed it unless she had actively gone digging - which of course, unfortunately, she didn't do. I guess sometimes breaking your own code of honour can be useful.

Thanks again for reading and reviewing, and I hope you enjoy this second chapter where we pick up Rogue's story. :)

-Ludi x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART ONE : GAMBIT_  
**

**(2) - Truth -**

_September 2014_

A lone figure trudged towards the ridge that housed the last inhabited outpost of the Tularosa Basin. The man at the tumbledown gas station looked over his newspaper and his tin cup of gritty coffee and stared. There was a time – when he had been much younger – that there had been many comings and goings on this barren and lonely stretch of road. That was back when the government had all sorts of top-secret projects going on down in the desert. He'd been used to seeing the military and the civil servants being flown in, to the oddballs and the conspiracy theorists driving by in their four-by-fours, stopping over for a fill-up and a quick beer or a coffee before they left with their cameras and their binoculars and their crazy ideas. Not that he had minded particularly. He and his dad had made a fine little fortune out of the whole business. They'd opened up a small B&B and a pokey diner. They'd been able to afford a spanking new truck and an extension to their little shack.

Thirty years later, and things had certainly changed.

Dad dead and buried, Sentinels round every urban corner, that crazy ass test facility blown up, his little empire falling to bits around him, and his head of hair pretty much gone.

The odd sightseer still came. Not in the regular trickle that had flowed in all those years ago. That had long ago dwindled to the drip, drip, drip of the die-hard ufologists and conspiracy theorists. And then there were the odd rarities, the ones he couldn't place.

Like the girl walking up to his crumbling gas station in a pair of sturdy walking boots, denim hot pants and a string vest, brown hair damp with sweat caught up in an unruly ponytail. She poked her head through his window, called out in a voice that flowed as sweet and undulating as the Mississippi River, "'Scuse me, sir! Ah'm lookin' t' find the old government test facility that used to be down here. Went down nearly thirty years ago or so. Couldja tell me if Ah'm headin' in the right direction?"

The man laid down his paper and stood up, approaching the vision at the window as though to make sure he wasn't dreaming. He couldn't count the weeks since someone had last passed this way.

"The test facility you say?" he asked, readjusting his cap and scratching his scalp agitatedly. "There's a lotta them round here, miss. But if it's the one that fairly blew up all those years back then, yeah, sure. It's right down there, in the basin."

The girl dumped her rucksack on the windowsill and unzipped it. The man watched her as she took out a map. It was a long time since he'd encountered any passersby, but he certainly couldn't remember seeing any passerby as striking as her. She looked like she'd been travelling for a while, but there was something refined, unusual about her, punctuated most markedly by the shock of white that tumbled through her brown hair. Her skin was pale, only slightly bronzed by the heat of the New Mexico sun. He'd never seen anything like her before in his life.

She unfolded the map on the sill before him, swivelled it round so that he could see it. It was a chart of the surrounding area.

"Any idea where it would be on this map?" she asked, and he looked down at the paper, scanned it with the glance of someone who was well-used to giving directions to strangers.

"Well, lemme see," and he scratched the same part of his scalp again – her looks made him oddly nervous. "It's round about… here." He pointed out a spot in the middle of nowhere in particular – a dip between two precipices. He looked up at her worriedly. "You sure it ain't the Air Force base or the missile range you're lookin' for? There ain't nothin' round that ol' test facility no more. Nothin' to see 'part from yuccas and bits o' metal. Most folks go out t' see them lights in the sky…"

"Nah." And she gave the sweetest smile. "Lights don't interest me. Let's just say Ah'm seein' the sights."

She folded up the map again, tucked it back into her bag.

"Thanks, sugah."

And without another word the vision turned and left, leaving the man scratching that same bald spot on his head, blinking in the blinding sunlight after her.

...

Forty-five minutes later and the girl sat in the paltry shade of a greasewood bush, mopping the sweat from her face and her hair, sipping from one of several bottles of water she'd brought with her. The map lay beside her, creased and dirty and spotted with the white desert sands. Ahead of her another ridge rose high into the distance – on the other side, if the man at the gas station had been correct, lay the ruins of the Black Womb test facility. She looked overhead. The sun was high in the sky, the great blue expanse inhabited by nothing more than a falcon circling lazily overhead. She closed her eyes a moment. It was too hot to relax, too hot not to try.

"Have Ah come the right way?" she murmured to herself softly, half dozing in the heat of the sun. There was no spoken answer to her question but the soft fluttering as of butterfly wings beneath her skull, a warm sweetness that had kept her company through many lonely hours.

_I walked dis way, Rogue. I'm sure of dat_._ Just over de ridge, you'll see it._

A smile touched her lips; the sunlight blazed like fired through her closed eyelids.

"You sure about that, hon?" she murmured back, and he flickered there, briefly, like candlelight in the darkness.

_Trust me. It'll be there_.

And away he swam again.

Rogue sighed and leaned further back against the bush.

It'd taken her months to get this far, and now that she was so painfully close to her goal, she wasn't sure she had the strength to get past those last few kilometres to whatever it was she was supposed to find on the other side of that ridge. The only strength she now possessed was the fact that she had toiled so far over so great a distance that it was impossible for her to turn tail and flee now.

When she'd first started out from Chicago in the late summer, she'd had a destination to get to and not much of a plan. She'd bused most of the journey out of Illinois before running out of cash. By the time she'd smuggled herself over the state line into Missouri she'd been desperate. Remy had always been resourceful, but more to the point he'd had deep pockets. She didn't have much of either. In St. Louis she was forced to pause and take stock. There was no way she could make the rest of the trip to New Mexico without funds. So, she'd dyed her hair in a shopping mall restroom and managed to wheedle her way into working a single evening pulling pints in some dingy bar. Cash in hand. She blew most of it on renting a closet-sized room in a decrepit motel. A whole month went by before she managed to scrape together enough to move on. And move on she did. Trains were a luxury, but they were too well-policed, worse than the interstates and the toll booths. She'd hitchhiked her way to Oklahoma City.

More bar work. She settled in a nightclub where the music was loud and the lights were dim, where colours flashed and every girl was as pretty as the next when a man had drunk enough. She counted herself lucky she had the bar between them and her. It didn't stop some of them from waiting for her to get off work just so they could harass her – it happened to all the girls, she was no exception. She'd got a rep soon enough – touch the Rogue and she'd let you know what she thought with her fists. She wasn't afraid of using brute force if she had to.

And yet in a way, she'd learned to enjoy the work – surly patrons, wandering hands and all. Making an honest living, earning a wage – these were things she'd never really known. For the first time in her life, she learned to stand alone. No Gambit, no Brotherhood, no X-Men. Everything she had, she owned. They were the fruits of her labour. She answered to no one. Her world was what she made of it, every last spoil scraped together with the work of her bare hands. And there was a pride in that. A meagre one, but she had earned it, nonetheless.

It was only during the nights, in her little chocolate box room, that she would allow herself to retread the worn cycle of more meaningful days. She would lie in bed and touch the space beside her and think of _him_. Of Remy LeBeau.

She would stare into the darkness, into the emptiness, and the more she tried not to think about him, the closer he would seem. After they'd first left New York City on their journey to Chicago, they'd spent a lot of time together in places like these. Nameless places: squalid hotels and featureless motels. It'd brought back too many memories. Too many needs, too many desires. She'd close her eyes and delve into the quiet, forbidden place in her mind, like a child gleefully opening a box of forbidden candy; and she'd skate so close to the edge that sometimes she feared she'd lose herself forever.

Some nights, she didn't think she'd care if she did. Far better to lose herself in him, than to be lost as her forever.

Rogue opened her eyes slowly, drank a little more of the water.

The psyche of Gambit was the only companionship she'd had in the entire length of her journey, apart from the odd precognitive dream Irene would send her way, and those were things she'd rather forego at any cost. She was conscious of the fact that she was unable to form any kind of real relationship with the Remy in her head, but it was a comfort to have him there nonetheless, even if most of the time, all she'd do was sync with him and just _feel_ him there like a ghostly presence at the back of her mind. Sometimes that presence would be more visceral than others. Like those nights when she was feeling especially needful and she would feel him there like a warmth burning up her bare skin, so close that she could almost smell the scent of him. And it was times like those that she'd force herself to withdraw, to sever the ties, to let go of him. She couldn't allow herself to become hooked on something that wasn't _real_, not in a physical, tangible sense. He was a comfort, but, sometimes, he was also a danger.

A little of her strength regained, she stood. She began to climb that ridge, every laboured footstep a footstep nearer to her destination. And finally, she stood before it. The place that all those months of blood, sweat and tears had brought her to.

The ridge she stood upon gave way to a valley, and there, nestled in something of a bottleneck between the two plateaus, stood the remnants of the Black Womb test facility. She was almost surprised to see how little there was left of it. If the answers she sought were here, she wasn't sure where she was going to find them. The place had been stripped bare. She didn't expect to find anything concrete here.

Nevertheless she moved forward, and the only reason she did so was because she felt sure that Remy had walked this very same path not so very long ago. She could almost feel him striding right there beside her, down the slope, feet sinking in the sand dunes with the sun beating down on their backs and the sweat rolling off of their skin. They walked up to the ruins together, side by side. It took the edge off of her loneliness; it took away the sharpness of her doubt. And when she stopped and stared up at the ruins, he stopped right there beside her.

Black Womb was a fitting name.

The remnants of the building, charred by a long dead fire, shot upward from the sands like a black claw grasping skyward. Who knew what secrets that gnarly fist held? On the face of it, it seemed there were none. The entire area spread out before her, arid and barren.

Rogue stood in the twisted shadow of the ruin, her eyes flickering shut.

_You called, chere?_

Remy's voice tumbled like softly flowing whiskey in her mind.

"Shh," she whispered. "Ah'm tryin' to concentrate."

_I know,_ came the amused reply. _You need my help. Always thought I was usin' you for a good time, chere? Looks like you're gettin' your own back now…_

"Hush, sugah. Wish it was a good time Ah was usin' you for, but it ain't. This is business…"

His laugh was like the pulsing of butterfly wings beating beneath her skull. It was almost as if he had taken her hand in his own without her feeling it or touching it. When she opened her eyes again, he was right there with her. They were synced.

She stepped forward, into the bowels of the ruins. She could almost see him, a few paces ahead, guiding her, a phantom leaving nothing but invisible footprints for her to follow. He led her onward, urged her to follow him, and she, obedient, didn't question that he would show her to what she sought.

She must've walked no further than a few hundred yards when she stopped. The endless shifting of the sand at her feet had given way to a firm _thud_. She looked down and saw, half obscured beneath her boot, the bright sheen of metal. She dropped to her haunches and brushed away the white sand; in a moment she had uncovered what appeared to be a hatch, locked only by a simple mechanism. She turned it, knowing he had; opened the hatch and clambered inside, as she knew he had done so too. And when she stood inside that long, grey, musty corridor, under the buzzing lights her entrance had switched on, she knew she was standing exactly where he had.

"So where to now, Remy?" she whispered to herself, the soft sound of her voice echoing sibilantly in the silence. "Where did you go from here?"

There was no answer, not in words – yet she found herself tracing her way through the passageway as if bidden by some invisible hand to do so. As she walked, she looked about her curiously. Once this place had boasted state of the art technology – now all it seemed to boast was cobwebs and Cold War architecture. Yet again she doubted anything could be found here; but even as she thought this she came to a standstill outside an already open door. The singed remnants of a blown apart locking mechanism left her in no doubt. Remy had been in here.

Rogue peered inside. Within she saw the mangled disarray of shelves and filing cabinets, papers strewn about the floor thick and white as snow. She didn't second guess. She waded in.

It was cold in here, frigid after the blazing heat of the desert above. Rogue felt her flesh goosepimple and she rubbed her arms absently as she stepped into the middle of the room, coming to a hesitant halt. At her feet the papers lay silent and unmoving, locked in their own timeless secrets. She was reminded, briefly, of the room she had made for the psyche of her foster mother, Irene Adler, the prison in her head. There too pages had been scattered about the floor, pages she had guessed held the secrets of the _Libris Veritatus_, Destiny's prophecies of the future. The similarity between the two images struck her and she knelt down, cast her eyes over the pile of sheets about her. One stood out. She picked it up, lifted it to the light. It was burned, mottled in a strange, distinctive pattern. Her mouth twisted with recognition.

Remy had stood right here; his powers had touched this paper.

She stood too, dropping the piece of paper as she did so, letting it flutter downward to join its companions at her feet.

"Why were you here, Remy," she murmured softly to herself. "What were you lookin' for?"

"Me," a voice answered unexpectedly behind her, and she swung round, seeing the scrawny figure of a withered woman approaching her from the inner recesses of the room. "He was looking for me."

Rogue sucked in a breath. She had expected to find many sorts of answers in this place, but not this… thing. This shrivelled, monstrous facsimile of what had once been a woman. The clothes she wore sagged from her bony limbs; her hair clung to her scalp in great grey, matted clumps, as if unwilling. Her skin was pasty and decayed. The creature before her was nothing more than a rotting, walking corpse.

The thing cackled as it advanced towards her, as though it had read her thoughts.

"Yes, you find me repulsive," it croaked gleefully. "But of course, a pretty thing like you would. That's the worst of beauty – looking in the mirror and facing one's charms every day is enough to make one complacent. I was beautiful once," the thing added, with the air of trying to convince the other of a profound truth. "I never once thought I would turn into _this_."

The thing frowned, lost in a moment of tortured reminiscence. Rogue, having got over her initial sense of revulsion, was finally able to speak.

"Who are you?" she asked, and the thing seemed to come out of its reverie, staring at her narrowly.

"What do you think?" it snapped. "I am the Black Womb, of course."

The Black Womb. Rogue frowned.

"But Ah thought the Black Womb was the name of the project…"

"So it was, so it was," the thing replied irritably. "But it was named after _me_. _Mine_ was the womb, after all, the one that carried many of the subjects of Dr. Nathan Milbury's grand experiment. Or, in other cases, my genetic code was implanted into others. It is all the same," she continued, waving a hand impatiently. "I am the progenitor mutant, or so the good doctor once told me."

She cackled again. Rogue made no response. In the months she had spent making her way to this place, she had read through an awful lot of the two discs Remy had left behind in Chicago – the discs marked _Black Womb 1 _and _2_. She knew enough to know now who this creature was. She spoke the name falteringly.

"Amanda Mueller," she murmured. "That's who you are."

The woman looked displeased, as if she did not wish to be reminded of anything that tied her to her former life.

"Yes, yes," she snapped crossly. "That was my name, once." Again she waved her hand, as though the name was nothing more than an inconvenience. And again her eyes moved to Rogue with a shrewd rapacity. "So, was it the boy who led you here? Did he tell you to speak to me? He should have known better than to think I would talk to unwelcome guests."

She turned aside, muttering cantankerously to herself.

"If you're talkin' about Remy," Rogue replied coolly, "no, he never sent me here. Ah'm here on mah own account."

"_Really_?" the Black Womb snorted suspiciously. "Yet you just spoke of him as if he had led you here."

"It's complicated," Rogue sighed. "Ah have a trace of him, in my head. My powers allow me to absorb him. His thoughts, his memories, his powers, his…inclinations. Ah know he's been here. Why or what for exactly… that's what Ah'm here to find out."

The woman's face was suddenly alert as Rogue explained all this to her.

"Interesting," she mused at last. "Yes – very interesting. Your power, that is. Yes, I can see why he was so interested in you." She paused only momentarily, allowing Rogue no time to question her before ploughing onward; "You're right. The beautiful boy was here. He wanted to know if he was born here. I told him that he was." She cackled again. "Does that disgust you, pretty thing? To know that he was born here?"

The woman laughed harshly to herself, needing or wanting no answer, amused merely by the question itself. Rogue looked on with an expression of disdain and pity.

"So he _was _a product of the Black Womb project," she murmured quietly to herself. She had thought Amanda Mueller would not hear her words; but however deranged the woman appeared to be, her hearing was as acute as ever. She stopped chuckling and looked piercingly at Rogue.

"Yes. Yes he was. And how." Her voice rose to a mocking crescendo. "Essex's crowning achievement, he was. The jewel in his crown, the apple of his eye." She made a rude noise, something between a cackle and a snort. "Remy LeBeau, the greatest mutant ever to walk the earth – or so Essex believed at the time. He is nothing more than a disappointment to the good doctor now. Although," and her face turned despondent, "there is still potential in the boy yet, yes. He has strength – in unknown places." Her mouth began to flicker between a wry smile and a frustrated frown, and Rogue took the opportunity to speak.

"Strength in unknown places? What do you mean?"

Amanda Mueller sighed – whether out of sudden boredom or despair Rogue found difficult to tell.

"Remy LeBeau is an Omega level mutant – capable of limitless power. But he was unable to control those powers when he had them. Those fools at the Thieves Guild could never have given him the tools necessary to gain control of his birthright. The power he possessed was so all-encompassing he could have destroyed everything in his path; yes, and himself with it!" She grimaced sullenly, her wrinkled face crumpling. "And so who should he unwittingly seek out to give him control of those powers? None other than the one who had made him! Sinister! And Sinister knew him for what he was, even if the boy himself didn't at the time. He agreed to help him. It was a way, I believe, of keeping him in his power."

Rogue held her breath, feeling, at last, that she was beginning to understand something of what had motivated Remy to stay in Essex's thrall for all those years. Amanda nodded at her, seeing that she understood.

"Yes. He excised that part of the boy's brain that gave him access to the higher level functions of his power. Essex still has that part of him in his possession."

"And that's the hold he has over Remy…" Rogue whispered.

"A hold you call it. Perhaps." Amanda scowled. She looked… thwarted. It was the only word Rogue could find to describe her expression. She turned aside, muttering to herself, lost in a thread of thought that seemed to take her far away. Again that feeling of mingled pity and disgust surged in Rogue. Whatever had consumed this creature had taken her to the precipice of madness. It was an insanity that burned bright and hot, and the root of it was called hate.

Amanda no longer appeared to realise Rogue was there. She turned and would have walked back to wherever she had appeared from had Rogue not stopped her.

"Wait."

The word was spoken in a low voice, yet somehow Amanda heard it. She turned back, her expression closed and watchful once more, this time more curious than ever at the young woman who stood before her.

"You said Remy was here," Rogue began quietly. "Do you know where he went from here? Did he go back to Sinister?"

Amanda's eyes narrowed even further, till they seemed to resemble nothing more than glittering gimlets.

"How should I know where the boy went?" she snapped. "Although it is possible that he went back to Essex, yes. He wanted to kill him. But I told him it was impossible." Her eyes glittered with a malevolent hatred, her wrinkled mouth screwing in a demonstration of unparalleled loathing. "No – I am afraid that the boy is fated to belong to Essex. Essex made him, after all; Essex made him as his pawn, his plaything – and something more. The pawn rises against its master – but the rebellion is futile. The bond between the two," and the creature snickered mirthlessly, "is far too great."

Her glance moved back to Rogue curiously, almost distrustfully.

"Is it your plan to break the bond, pretty one?" she questioned in a thin voice. "Is it?"

Rogue let a breath linger in her throat. She had never come here with a plan in mind, never thought to conquer anyone or anything. The only thing she wanted to know was why Remy had never come back.

"Ah just want to know the truth," she murmured; and the old woman laughed.

"The truth!" she echoed mockingly. "There is no easy way to speak it. Remy LeBeau was born to the Black Womb, and he was lost to it. He was made – constructed – coldly and passionlessly, to be a weapon; to be a testament to the genius of Dr. Nathaniel Essex. He was born of pride and hubris, of a loveless vengeance against those who had hated and despised his maker. He was created to prove a point, and to destroy those that would not heed it. And so. There is your truth, my dear. Remy LeBeau is not a man, he is a _thing_. He was a thing _we _created in order to fulfil everything Nathaniel and I had ever dreamed of, and now he is a disappointment. But more so, I feel, to Nathaniel, than to myself."

A hideous smile flickered over her lips, and Rogue saw that this woman, this monster, had lost so much in her life already that she expected nothing more than that her paltry grievances be avenged. She thought of Remy, hearing all this just as she had, and her heart twisted painfully. He had not returned to her – perhaps out of shame, perhaps because Essex could offer back this missing part of him, this last puzzle piece that would restore to him whatever it was he had meant to be. She knew what the truth meant to him. She knew it outweighed whatever it was that she could give him.

She turned to leave, unable to thank this creature for all the bitterness that the truth had given her; but this time it was Amanda that called out "wait," her voice now lined with an undercurrent of rapacious inquisitiveness. Rogue stopped and swivelled back round. Amanda was looking upon her with all the hunger of a preying mantis. It surprised and unnerved Rogue to see that her expression was one of greed.

"What?" she asked quietly, and Amanda moved towards her as though drawn to a flame.

"You intrigue me, pretty one. That you should come back after all these years, just as he did…" She paused, and Rogue was about to question her in surprise when she continued again musingly; "I remember you, of course. One would not soon forget those eyes, or that hair. It makes me wonder. Why are you really here, pretty one?"

Rogue stared at her, her brows knotted in dread and confusion as the words spiralled around her.

"You… _know_ me…?" she breathed, and Amanda nodded sharply.

"Of course I do! They brought you here, didn't they! When you were a newborn. Because you had the X-gene, like the other ones! Essex knew you were special. You had a mark, you see, from birth, just like the boy had, with his eyes." She reached out and touched the white lock of hair at Rogue's cheek, and Rogue instinctively drew back, repulsed. Amanda saw her expression and dropped her hand, laughing quietly. "But you were lost to him too, when I destroyed this place." Her eyes momentarily roamed the wall with pride at the remains of her handiwork, before locking on Rogue's again with overt suspicion. "Tell me – did he find you again? Was it _he_ who sent you here, as he sent the boy before you? Was it _Essex?_"

She spat out the name again with such loathing that Rogue felt the woman's dank and decaying breath on her face and she couldn't help but flinch.

"Ah don't know what you mean," she retorted coldly. "But if for some reason you're thinkin' that Ah'm in league with Sinister, you're mistaken. Ah'm here because Remy came here, and Ah want to know why. That's all."

For a long moment neither said a thing, each regarding the other with defiance and mistrust. Amanda was the one to break first, throwing back her head with a crackle of laughter sounding from withered lips.

"Yes, I see," she hissed derisively once her cackles had died away. "I see it in _you_. You came here out of passion. How interesting." She laughed raucously again, and this time the sound was openly mocking. Rogue could only suppress a shudder as the scornful peals petered into silence and the woman lowered her snake-like head, pressing forward with a confidential air to say; "Beware your love of the darkness, pretty one. It consumes all. And it may just kill you, as it once did me."

-oOo-


	3. Counsel

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Just to give a big welcome to my new readers, and to say thanks for reading to the old! I love you guys! Also, I updated my LiveJournal with some backstory to Tanya Trask, so feel free to check it out if you're interested. From now on I'm hoping to move back to Saturday updates rather than Sunday. Have fun, guys, and please do review if you can - I love to hear what you think of my work!

Much love,

-Ludi x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART ONE : GAMBIT_  
**

**(3) - Counsel -**

"So," Clark began as he ran a wet dishcloth over the bar whilst Rogue cleaned the last of the glasses, "how was your trip? Do anythin' interestin'?"

Rogue stacked the final glass away and stretched out the kinks in her joints. It'd been a long night pulling pints whilst being assailed by loud, angry music.

"Not really," she replied, slipping off her apron and folding it up. Clark hitched a grin.

"Yeah, well, coulda told ya that. Ain't much t' see in Alamagordo. Unless you're into all that conspiracy theory stuff."

"Yeah…" she answered, non-committal. She'd only got back from the place that afternoon and had gone straight to work. She was dead tired – tired to the bone. She'd hardly had a moment to digest any of what she had learned from Amanda Mueller.

"Nice hair, by the way," her boss remarked, double-checking the till was locked.

"Huh?"

"That white streak. Suits you. Get bored, huh?"

"Oh. Yeah. That. Thought Ah'd have a change." She yawned heavily. "Think Ah'll call it a night, if'n you're okay lockin' up by yahself, sugah…"

Clark looked at her with some concern.

"Gimme five minutes and I can walk you home…"

Rogue smiled faintly. Clark was a nice guy, always looking out for his female employees. She appreciated it. She appreciated the fact she wasn't just a choice piece of ass to him.

"Nah. Don't worry 'bout it, sugah. You know me. Ah can take care of mahself."

"That's what I'm afraid of," the older man replied, though there was a grin on his face. The last time anyone had tried to cop a grope with her, they'd ended up almost being defenestrated. "All right, Anna. You get on home. Just gimme a call if you get into any trouble."

"Will do," she replied with a smile, and left.

Her one-room apartment was only a couple of blocks down. The journey there always involved walking past a group of meatheads on the street corner. Apart from the occasional wolf whistle, they knew by now to leave her alone. More than one of them had had a taste of her knuckleduster. That was the rules of the street. Hold your own corner and you gain respect. Fight back and if you win they'll leave you alone.

The apartment block was probably the shittiest in town, but she didn't much care. She climbed the stairs to the fifth floor and heard the man across the hall shouting at his wife, the little old lady next door listening to the TV on full-blast again. She had probably fallen asleep in her armchair again. It was what she always did.

Rogue entered into her little room, drew the blinds against neon lights and collapsed onto the bed. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. For the first time she let it all sink in. The truth, shifting to the surface as if after untold years.

On the journey back here, to Roswell, she'd horded everything Amanda had told her, shut it all up in a little box in the corner of her mind, refused to think about it. She'd needed to get through today, get through work and talking to co-workers and serving patrons. But now she was alone, and now she had to _deal_. So she went through it all methodically. She dissected the fact that she had been a subject of the Black Womb project, that her parents had given her away to Sinister and Amanda Mueller at birth. From what she had read in the Black Womb files, she wasn't anything out of the ordinary in that respect. The project had ordered in infants from all corners of the country to participate in their 'research'. A referral from an obstetrician was all it had taken.

And in a way, it answered many questions. It explained away all the years she'd spent wondering why her parents had felt like strangers to her, why they had never shown her any love or affection, why they had even been afraid of her. It was because they had always _known_ she was a mutant, long before her powers had even manifested. What the Black Womb scientists had told them about her, she didn't know. But it was enough for them to view their own daughter with suspicion and fear. It was enough for them to fail to bond with her.

And then there was Remy.

Rogue sighed on a sudden pang.

She had somehow thought that the months of separation would dull her feelings for him, but they had only served to make them sharper, deeper, now more so than ever. She couldn't begin to imagine how he had felt hearing everything Amanda Mueller had had to say to him, and it made her heart ache. At least she had had parents. At least they had loved her enough to take her back. Remy had been born – _made_ – to be a test subject. An experiment. Never mind that he had been intended to be Essex's greatest. Somehow, that made it worse. His purpose, his life had been calculated beforehand in the most cold-blooded and callous way possible.

She drew in a shaky breath and rolled over onto her side, pressing her face into the pillow.

She longed to hold him. Longed for him to be beside her. Longed for his warmth. More than anything she wanted to comfort him, to tell him it was okay, that it didn't change how she felt about him. That if anything it made her love him all the more.

He'd never liked it, never liked hearing her tell him she loved him, but she'd say it to him now. The keenness of her emotions cut into her like a knife. It hurt. It hurt to want him like this and for him to be so far. It hurt to be this in love with someone when you couldn't even reach out and touch them, couldn't even pick up the phone and call them.

So she tied it all up again. Wrapped it into a hard little bundle and hid it deep down inside her. She whispered his name just once, before closing her eyes and falling asleep.

-oOo-

_She's here again._

_ Bathed in the cold dimness, the world whirling lazily about her._

_ She tries to stop it from moving. She can't. She wants to feel scared, betrayed, hard done by. But everything is a delicious blur, and she doesn't understand why._

_ She hears voices above her. His voice – and Essex's. She tries to move but when she does she realises she's strapped down, she can't._

_ She opens her eyes a crack._

_ And his eyes are looking down into hers, blazing red and malevolent_

_ Too late, he knows she's awake _

_ And Remy stands there impassive_

_Doing nothing as Essex's needle punctures her arm_

_ And the drug courses through her veins and_

Silence.

Rogue sat bolt upright under the shadow of the cedar tree, a crystalline white sky arching protectively over her, its reflection sparkling in the clear blue lake just a little way down the slope.

At the realisation of where she was, Rogue gasped for breath and gathered her wits.

It had been a dream. Another one of Irene's prophetic dreams. And now she'd woken up in her own mind. In the sanctuary she had built for herself, made in the image of the grounds of the Xavier Institute. She glanced to her right. There, atop the hill, nestled upon its crest, stood the mansion itself, an anchor in her mind. Even the sight of it was enough to ease the racing of her heartbeat and the jangling of her nerves.

It was at that moment she heard the light tread of footsteps behind her, and she swivelled slightly, seeing – little to her surprise – that it was the shade of Irene standing behind her, mahogany cane in hand, waiting patiently.

Rogue stood and faced her. It was clear to her now why she was here and not awake in her own bed.

"Irene," she muttered begrudgingly. "Shoulda known. Now it makes sense why Ah've been dragged inside mah own head."

"You're still angry with me," the little old lady noted calmly, deprecatingly, and Rogue felt her gall rise at the woman's insouciance.

"Ah don't much care for bein' dragged in here at your beck and call," she ground out angrily. "This is _mah_ mind after all, not yours!"

"Yes," the shade of Irene agreed shortly, turning aside and walking towards the lake. "But there is no other way, Rogue, to communicate with you. I am sorry for the way in which it must be done; it _must_ be done, nevertheless."

Rogue followed her down to the water's edge, her indignation still unappeased.

"And that ain't the least of it, Irene!" she raged. "Can't yah stop givin' me these darn dreams? Why are you showin' them to me anyway? Ah thought Ah wasn't supposed to know the future…"

Irene stopped on the banks of the lake and sighed heavily, as though Rogue's question was one she had answered many, many times before in the course of her life.

"These are but _possible_ futures you are seeing, Rogue. Snapshots of various threads in time. And I show you everything you _need_ to see, in order to guide the choices you may make."

"And isn't that forbidden?" Rogue demanded, vexed, and Irene passed her a sidelong smile.

"_Nothing_ is forbidden, Rogue. _Everything_ is permitted. If it is forbidden, it is not _possible_. Do you see that? No choice is forbidden to you, my child. And so I must guide you to make the _right_ choice, even if, at the very end, you choose another path. And that is your right. I am not here to _make_ you do anything." She looked back to the water, the smile still playing across her thin lips. "Besides, I thought you might _want_ to speak to me, considering you have finally discovered what it is you set out here to find out."

Rogue looked away, biting her lip, her anger quelled for the moment. Irene was right. She had too many questions.

"Ah'm a subject of the Black Womb project," she stated in a hard voice. Irene's expression was level, imparting nothing.

"Yes."

Rogue turned back to her, eyes blazing.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"What use would it have been to you, had you known?" Irene answered evenly.

"Well obviously it's of use to me _now_," Rogue burst out, her irritation rising again. "Or maybe to _you_!"

Irene's countenance showed an infinite patience that could not be tried.

"It serves to tell you, my dear, that Remy LeBeau is not the only one that is tied to Nathaniel Essex."

Rogue clamped her mouth shut at that. Her gut lurched with sudden sadness mingled with longing.

"Remy…" she whispered, and Irene nodded.

"Yes. You were both children of the Black Womb. But that is nothing in itself. There are many who were."

"Not like Remy though," Rogue murmured, and again Irene nodded.

"No. He was – _is_ – one of a kind. Essex's wish was for him to be his weapon. It is a good thing," and Irene smiled to herself, "that he was taken away from Essex at the earliest opportunity."

Rogue glanced at the shade of her foster mother curiously.

"How do you know all this?" she queried; Irene sighed.

"I worked on the Black Womb project. As an archivist. I saw all the subjects as they passed through. I saw the one they now call Gambit. I saw _you_." She smiled at Rogue. "I did not like what Essex was planning. I had seen the future, and it wasn't to my liking. So I decided to take you away from him. When Amanda Mueller destroyed the test facility out of her hatred of Essex, I took you in secret and returned you to your parents. It was my intention," she continued flatly, "to have the boy removed from Essex's clutches as well. Raven and I had considered raising him ourselves, but such a thing would have proved to be… difficult. There were other matters the two of us had to attend to, and the boy had to be brought up in a certain way for our plans to be of any use. Raven… _left_ him in the facility even as it fell. And that was the end of that."

"But somehow he ended up with the Thieves Guild," Rogue finished quietly, and Irene's smile was now wide.

"Yes. Fate has a funny way of making things happen exactly as you wish them to."

They fell into silence. When Rogue next spoke her voice was soft, quizzical.

"There's still one thing you haven't explained to me," she began. "And that's _why me_? Why did you take _me_ out of the project? What did Sinister have planned for me?"

And Irene's soft blue eyes went suddenly sad.

"A kind of death, my dear," she replied in a voice laced with sorrow. "You have seen it yourself."

Rogue made no response. Her memory was cast back to another prophetic dream Destiny had sent her many months ago. She touched her breast instinctively. In her dream a knife had been wedged in it.

"You mean…Sinister wants to_ kill_ me…" she murmured; but Irene shook her head emphatically.

"No. He doesn't _want_ to kill you. But he _will_, if it comes to it. And what he decides to do rests with you. Do you not understand, my child," she turned to Rogue fully, her eyes beseeching, "that your choices, your decisions, drive so very many things? The balance of Fate itself hinges upon them. _This_ is why I have brought you here, why I have shown you what I have, why I have impelled you to seek out Amanda Mueller. Because all these things are to help you make the _right decision_. And I cannot _force_ you to make it. It cannot be _my_ choice whether you live or you die. It _must_ be yours."

She looked aside again, back to the lake, real anguish in her features.

"If I were to show you all I have seen," she continued as though struggling with a conflict of deep inner emotion, "there would be no choice for you to make. The threads of Fate would drive you to madness, and all would be lost. It is impossible for me to risk such a thing."

There was such distress on her face that Rogue was almost entirely placated.

"If what you say is true," she reasoned slowly, "then who can help me? Can't you at least tell me who it is Ah can trust to be there if the worst comes to the worst with Sinister?"

And Irene gave her that look again, a glance oddly askance.

"Do you pretend not to know, Rogue?" she retorted with such weight to her words that Rogue knew instinctively what she meant.

"Remy?" she voiced aloud, her brow furrowing in consternation. "But… Ah think he's _workin' _for Sinister right now…"

"He knows," Irene interjected quietly. "He knows that you, too, are a child of Essex's. In a way, it is _that_ knowledge that guides him, that leads him back to Essex. He fears it. He fears what it means you might _be_." She paused, looked fully at Rogue once more. "You ask for proof that you may trust him. There is no real proof I can give you, Rogue. But you love him. Does not _that_ fact alone entail implicit trust in him?"

Rogue frowned at her.

"You once told me that Ah was in even greater danger _because _Ah loved him…"

"Did I?" Irene replied innocently. "Yes, perhaps I did. But is danger not relative? And is love not _always_ dangerous?" She laughed softly at the riddle, and Rogue stared at her, wondering yet again if her foster mother wasn't someone to be trusted herself. "Whatever the case," Irene continued soberly after a moment, "it is your decision. Remy LeBeau is a powerful ally to have – his closeness to Essex makes him doubly so. He has his own agenda, to be sure; but you are forgetting one very important factor in the equation that points very much in his favour."

"And what's that?" Rogue asked on a murmur, and Irene glanced at her with great surprise.

"Why, my dear, it is obvious – that he loves you too."

-oOo-


	4. Homecoming

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Next chapter! Next chapter and the bad boy comes back! And he will be _bad! _Naughty Remy... ;)

And where are my reviews?! I am heartbroken...! T_T

In other news, I got a preliminary copy of _House of Cards_ back from the printer this week! I've made the minor edits and am now typesetting _Twist of Fate_ and drawing illustrations for it. Check out my Tumblr for a photo of the book! I'm so excited, it looks so nice! :D I'll be putting it up for sale on when it's finalised. Let me know if you're interested via PM or review or whatever... Please note, I will NOT make any profit from the sales... You will only be charged for material costs, processing, and P&P. :)

With much love and excitement,

-Ludi x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART ONE : GAMBIT_  
**

**(4) - Homecoming -**

Spots of rain were gathering on the ground like mis-matched polka dots.

Logan checked his watch again and then his texts. He'd been waiting the better part of an hour and narrowly avoided a Sentinel patrol ten minutes before.

It was a relief when finally the familiar figure of Rogue came into view, and he stood to attention; she noticed him as he did so, and with a smile on her face, quickened her pace.

"Logan," she greeted him with obvious joy when they finally stood before each other, drawing him into a spontaneous hug. "Sorry Ah'm late," she added, stepping away. "Ran into trouble at the toll plaza."

He was alarmed to hear it.

"You okay?" he asked breathlessly.

"Ah'm fine," she assured him. "Shame the same can't be said for some other poor mutant. He got caught at the state line. Guy was so desperate to leave he wouldn't take no for an answer. You can guess what happened next." She frowned. "The place went nuts."

Logan nodded grimly. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence.

"Just as long as you're okay, stripes…"

He looked her up and down. She looked okay – better than okay. The time out appeared to have done her good. Her skin was still flushed with the slightest trace of a tan; she looked revitalised somehow.

"Still livin' outta that bag?" he asked her, cocking a look at the carryall slung over her shoulder. She shrugged.

"Don't need much else, sugah." She looked around with interest. "So, still underground, are we? This old subway station's seen better days…"

"Don't knock it," Logan replied gruffly, leading her in through a maintenance door – the main entrances had been blocked up years ago. "It's about the most secure fuckin' place I've been in. Was a shelter back during the war. For the statics, of course. They figured they could hide here from our superpowers. Though I'm thinkin' most of 'em ended up here to hide from the Sentinels in the end."

The maintenance door actually opened up into an elevator. Logan punched in a few keys, and the lift lurched downward.

"Nice," Rogue remarked appreciatively.

"Yeah." Logan couldn't quite hide the pride from his voice. "Forge helped us to get through security. Then he set it back up again. The guy's a fuckin' genius. But you don't need me to tell you that."

She glanced at him curiously.

"Yah keepin' in contact with the Brotherhood?"

"Not really." Logan shrugged. "Kinda. When it suits the both of us." He gave her a sidelong glance. "We asked Forge to come stay with us, but he said no. Guess he's made a home with your lot now. Fair enough."

"They ain't _my lot_," Rouge murmured to the wall, and Logan frowned.

"Figure of speech, stripes. You know the Brotherhood more than anyone. For what it's worth."

"Yeah."

She was quiet as the elevator juddered to a halt and the doors slid open, and he guessed it wasn't exactly easy for her to contemplate being in contact with her old team-mates again. He got it. He changed the subject quickly as he led her out behind him.

"So. You managed to figure out why the Cajun went AWOL?"

There was a long silence behind him, and he guessed he'd hit another raw nerve; but it was too late to take the question back now.

"Remy?" Her tone told him she was going for calm control but wasn't quite able to manage it. "The only thing Ah really learned is that he's probably workin' for Sinister right now."

Well he couldn't say it surprised him.

"Coulda told ya that before ya left," he snorted. She was so quiet again that he knew exactly what her feelings were on the matter. "Somethin' tells me you still ain't given up on him though," he noted wryly.

"Ah don't believe workin' for Essex was really a choice he wanted to _make_, Logan," she returned in a low voice, and he grimaced.

"You can believe that if you wanna, kid. But there's one thing I know for sure. He cares about you; and that's sayin' somethin', even if I don't wanna be the one who says it."

She made no response as they stepped out of the elevator, and he decided to leave it at that.

The bunker had long been abandoned before Logan and the others had made it their new home. Dirt and damp was still a problem, though they'd patched things up as best they could. Several months, and it was finally starting to feel like a real home. Jubilee had done a good job of adding a splash of colour to the place – including some other, dubious style statements. Logan had let it pass mainly because anything was an improvement on the way it had looked before.

They stopped outside what was now the Rec Room and looked in. Everett was sitting watching TV; Betsy was in a corner, polishing a finely wrought katana. The usual greetings were exchanged; the two both looked glad to see her.

"Nice trip?" Everett asked her from the couch. "I sure could use a vacation." He gave Logan a meaningful glance which the older man pretended not to notice.

"Ah dunno if it was fun, sugah," Rogue replied humorously. "But it was… instructive. And Ah actually have some cash on me right now."

"I wouldn't let Jubilee hear that," Betsy commented sardonically. "The girl has decided she likes interior design and she has very expensive tastes."

"Yeah," Ev rolled his eyes. "It's a fuckin' nightmare."

Logan saw a small grin light Rogue's face and knew what she was thinking. It was good to be back.

"Ah'll keep that in mind," she replied comically, and they moved off again.

"Gotcha a new room set up," Logan informed her as they walked down a colourful corridor with hot pink walls and a neon green ceiling. "Well – Jubilee set it up anyway when we got your call. Emma tried to restrain her, but, well… Don't blame me if it gives you a headache."

Rogue laughed.

"Ah'm pretty much used to sleepin' anywhere, as long as it ain't a sewer, hon."

"Yah say that now…" he muttered, turning a corner.

"Logan?" she said, after a moment.

"Yups?"

"Ah'm sorry about what happened. Y'know, with Rachel and the others. Ah wish… Ah wish Ah'd been there t' help you guys out."

He stopped and turned to her, his expression darkening. He'd managed to keep her up to speed via texts and emails during the whole debacle, glad for once that she had taken the option of following the Cajun's scent rather than his own.

"No," he answered roughly. "You don't. It's a good thing you _weren't_ there, Rogue. Anythin' coulda happened to yah."

Her face was sombre.

"Yah said Rachel disappeared…"

He nodded.

"Into the Timestream is what Kate said."

"So Kate wasn't successful? She didn't manage to stop Senator Kelly from bein' murdered?"

"Heh." Logan's tone was full of irony. "She prevented his death all right. But it didn't change a damn thing. Not _here_ anyway."

Rogue looked away, her mouth twisting bitterly. "It just made a new timeline…"

"Right." He nodded. "And that ain't the only thing. The person who murdered Senator Kelly in the first place… It was your foster mother."

She glanced at him sharply.

"Raven?"

"No," and the word was even graver. "Irene."

That knocked her for six. For a full minute she was unable to speak.

"_Irene?_" she managed to finally get out in disbelief.

"Yeah. Interestin', huh. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it. I mean, if she started this whole fucked up timeline in the first place, what the hell is she hoping to gain from it? What's she playin' for?"

Rogue opened her mouth to reply, but no response came. He almost felt sorry for her.

"Ah can't believe it," she spoke hoarsely. "It ain't _possible_."

"Sorry, stripes." He turned, leading her away again. "I'm afraid it's the truth. You could always ask your mom what the hell she was thinkin'. Then again, I don't reckon you'll get a straight answer outta her. For what everythin's worth," he added, stopping in front of the door to her new room and pausing to glance at her, "you were right about Tanya. Damn bitch betrayed us."

The slant to Rogue's mouth told him that the news disturbed her on more than one level.

"She wasn't a _bad_ person, Logan…" she murmured, and he laughed coldly.

"Ha! No. She was just fuckin' insane. I don't know what the hell Trask did to her to screw her up so bad, but whatever it was the girl was certifiably unhinged. Anyway," he continued, opening to the door to her room, "she's gone now. Split after the shit that went down at the internment camp. No one's heard a peep outta her. Wise girl. If anyone did she'd probably be long dead."

"And Kate?"

"Kate?" He frowned momentarily. "I offered her a place t' stay with us. She didn't take me up on it. Needed her own space." He shrugged, but couldn't quite hide an edge of regret. "Her life, her choice. Wasn't about to go messin' with it."

He opened the door fully onto the room Jubilee had prepared for Rogue. It was the first time he'd looked in on it since handing it over to the girl and he was almost surprised to see that it wasn't as much of a travesty as he'd been expecting. The greens had been tempered with creams and neutrals, and he sensed that Emma had had more of a hand in the decorating than she'd at first let on. The way Rogue was smiling as she stepped inside told him that she was as pleasantly surprised as he was.

"Thought you said I'd be gettin' a headache in here," she joked and Logan let out a breath of relief.

"Looks like the kid has more taste than I thought," he muttered. "Although it probably has more to do with Emma's persuasion than anything else."

"It's perfect," Rogue enthused, giving him another impromptu hug – and he knew she really _was_ glad to be back. "Thanks, Logan."

-oOo-

A week slipped past.

Rogue had enough on her plate reacclimating to the new surroundings and mulling over what she was going to do next.

She'd come back mainly because Irene had prompted her to do so. The thing was, she was even less sure than before that Irene was to be trusted. She had no reason to believe that Logan or Kate or any of the others had lied to her about Irene having been the one to kill Senator Kelly and thus instigate the whole mutant-static war. But on the other hand, it just didn't seem _right_. Why on earth would Irene have done such a thing if her whole purpose in life was to protect mutantkind?

Of course, there was no way of telling whether that actually _was_ Irene's purpose, and that being the case, there was no real reason to believe that any advice Irene gave her was actually useful, or – more to the point – to be trusted.

Rogue sat on the edge of her bed, cell phone in hand, her teeth chewing nervously on her lower lip.

Irene had told her that her next step was to call Remy, to ask for his help. And the truth of the matter was that even if Irene's guidance was nothing more than a trap, Rogue was still considering going ahead with what she had been told. She kept telling herself it didn't have a thing to do with Irene, that it had more to do with the fact that she needed to talk to him about everything she had learned, everything that had passed between her and Amanda Mueller in Alamogordo. She needed to _be_ there for him.

And there was something else too, though she hardly liked to admit it.

If she had to be frank about the whole thing she'd call him just for the plain fact that she _wanted_ him. Ten months had gone by without so much as hearing his voice, and some nights the thought of being apart from him another day was enough to drive her to insanity.

She would've called him even if it was only for an hour or so of passionate sex.

Rogue caught her breath and rubbed her face tiredly. She'd been contemplating this moment for a while now – almost to the point of obsession – analysing every pro and con that came with contacting him again. And it had always ended in her putting it off. It wasn't because she was _afraid_ exactly. It was more because she wasn't sure what needed to be said or how to approach a subject that wasn't exactly the easiest to discuss. The fact was, anything other than face to face was not going to cut it.

She flicked open her messenger and ran off a text. It was… hard. Knowing what balance to keep, knowing how he'd want this to _be_. Months had passed since they'd last been in contact. And what she saw when she reread their previous exchanges (as she sometimes did when she was alone) were discourses full of need and desire and tenderness and love and everything she knew he wouldn't want now. So, she kept it neutral. She kept it short. She kept it brief.

_Remy, need 2 talk. Black womb. _

She stared at the screen.

There were a lot of ways she wanted to sign off, but even her name seemed superfluous. This had to be impersonal. So, after a long moment of anxious reflection, she sent off the text just as it was, hoping that it would be enough to elicit a reply.

Hours passed without a response.

Rogue spent the better part of the evening clutching her phone before venturing over to the kitchen, her churning stomach protesting that she did in fact need some sustenance other than adrenaline.

Jubilee was already at the long, metal trestle table, playing a game on her tablet over a bowl of fries and mayonnaise.

"Damn!" she hissed at the screen, an obvious sign that it was game over.

"How do you afford all this shit?" Rogue asked her curiously. Jubilee was rarely without some gadget or other. The girl didn't even bother looking up from her game.

"By turning tricks. Whaddaya think?"

"That ain't funny, Jubes," Rogue said with a frown, and the girl pulled a face.

"I got it from the mall back in Chicago," she explained impatiently. "Where else could I have gotten it?"

"So you stole it," Rogue stated, going through the cupboards, trying to find something quick and easy to cook up.

"Yeah. So? It was in a crate full of shit no one was gonna look in. If I hadn't taken it, some other prick would have." She glanced over at Rogue who was now making something of a commotion banging doors and muttering irritably to herself. "You can have the rest of my fries, if you want," the younger woman offered, starting up another game on her tablet. "I ate two bowls already."

Rogue gave up and sank into a chair opposite Jubilee, who passed the fries over willingly.

"Jubes, you're a lifesaver," Rogue sighed, stuffing a few fries into her mouth. The girl waved her hand.

"Yeah, I know. It's why I'm an X-Man, dude."

They fell into silence, Rogue eating hungrily, Jubilee engrossed in her game.

"So why'd Logan choose this place?" Rogue asked at last.

"Beats me," Jubilee shrugged. "'Cos he likes being underground, I guess. The man has a thing about Cold War bunkers and shit. He ain't at home unless he can pretend there's nukes landing overhead. It's in his blood."

Rogue gave a non-committal grunt. She knew Logan took his duties seriously, and to him protecting his friends and fellow mutants was the most important duty of all. Jubilee could make light of that fact, but they both knew the truth – that they owed more than they cared to admit to the man's dogged resourcefulness.

It was as Rogue was mulling all this over that the phone pinged by her elbow, and she snatched it up quickly, her heart beating fast, her stomach churning ominously.

It was _him_.

All he'd sent her was a set of coordinates and a time – one hour from now.

She scraped her chair back and got up. Jubilee looked at her curiously.

"Where you goin'?"

"Out," Rogue replied, grabbing her jacket from behind her chair.

"Must be some mega hot date," Jubilee remarked slyly, as Rogue slipped another fry or two into her mouth whilst simultaneously shrugging the jacket on one-handed. "Was that Gambit?"

"It ain't what you're thinkin'," Rogue insisted, swallowing down her mouthful of fries. "Ah just need t' tell him somethin'."

"Uh-huh?" Jubilee looked sceptical. "You just keep tellin' yourself that, girl. I know the signs. You are still _so_ hot for him."

"Shut up," Rogue muttered, punching the coordinates into her sat nav app. "If Ah ain't back by tomorrow mornin'…"

"Yeah, yeah," Jubilee waved a hand at her, "don't wait up. You guys have fun now."

"Shut up," Rogue repeated, giving up on anymore denials or explanations and hurrying out the door.

-oOo-


	5. Fence

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Gambit's back! And yes, as you say, **me voila**, Rogue is both terrified and excited to see him again. As I guess we all are o_O **Nikki199**: I'm so glad that you like the way I write Remy, despite his horrible jerkiness. I hope that this chapter (and the rest of the story, for that matter) doesn't disappoint - especially since he's going to be a terrible jerk for a while now... :( **jpraner**: If you want to read the whole thing at once, I can send it to you to beta read... only if you _really_ want :) And lastly, **sugahroc**, thanks for the love affair with my art... You are too kind. :) Many thanks also to **slightlyxjaded, Warrior-princess1980, KitsuK8, Guest, Negative Other, frolicking** for the lovely reviews; and to all my readers for continuing to tag along! Hope this chapter lives up to expectations! ;)

-Ludi x

**EDIT 20-09-2014: **After beta-reading, I have edited this chapter and cut in half. Hopefully this chapter now better reflects the state of mind and motivations of the characters, which will have repercussions later in the story. Many thanks to **jpraner** for the extensive beta-reading. :)

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART ONE : GAMBIT_  
**

**(5) - Fence -**

It was the waterfront.

Rogue leaned over the rails and looked down. The water was dark as ink, sparkling with the lights of the city. Her form was nothing more than a blot, a stain on the water. Black. Reminding her of the desiccated face of Amanda Mueller. She frowned and lifted her face to the breeze, letting it play with her hair. Closing her eyes did not dispel the images – her mind made them clearer, more visceral. She couldn't un-see what she had seen, despite the hours spent purging her mind. She was no Xavier, no Jean Grey. She couldn't wash away memories, however sorely she may have been tempted.

"_Chere_."

Always the same. No greetings, no idle pleasantries. Just _chere_. She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder at him.

He stood in the light of the streetlamp, hands in pockets, the collar of his trench coat turned up against the chill. She held her breath at the sight of him. Such beauty born out of such ugliness. Seeing him this close again after so long, knowing what she knew about him now – it didn't change how she felt about him, not for a minute.

"Remy," she greeted him in kind. "Long time no see."

He walked out of the light, stepping up to the railings beside her. Together they looked out onto the river, side by side, not needing any words; or perhaps, not quite sure of what they wanted to say to one another.

"Got your message," he spoke at last, still looking down into the restless waters of the Hudson. He leant his elbows against the railing and she saw a playing card in his hand; he flipped it between his fingers absently, that same old nervous tic she knew so well. "Was surprised to hear from you, _chere_. After all dis time…"

"Ah needed to talk," she broke in softly. "Ah know about the risks… Yah don't need to tell me. But this… it had to be in person."

"What is it?" he asked her. There was no anger in his voice, nor was there any curiosity. Whatever his true feelings, he was masking them again. It was impossible for her to tell just how much of this was just business to him..

"Ah followed your trail," she confessed, wondering if _this_ would rile him, even if nothing else did. "To Alamogordo. Ah met _her_ there. Amanda Mueller."

There was no surprise on his face. No chagrin. His eyes remained on the waters down below; but his mouth tightened.

"And what led you dere?" he asked her quietly.

"You did. Destiny too." She shivered, tucked a loose lock of white hair behind her ear. "Ah'd been havin' dreams about the Black Womb facility for months. Took me a while to figure out what it was though…"

He frowned.

"Destiny?" he spoke; and then his brow cleared. "Oh. Yeah. I almost forgot. You absorbed her." The card paused between his fingers. "She been givin' you trouble, _chere_?"

She nodded.

"Sometimes. Sometimes she makes me see things, things that could happen in the future. Usually they don't make a whole lotta sense. But when Ah ask _you_ about it…" she trailed off, realising that he probably wouldn't like what she had intended to say next.

"You mean you went and talked to the 'me' in your head? The one you stole?" he questioned with a hint of bitterness, still not looking at her.

"Ah had t' know the truth," she said. "Ah'm sorry you don't like it, but trust's a two-way street, sugah. Ah'm fairly sure you've hidden more than a few truths from me too." She saw the evenness of his countenance and continued in a soft voice, "Why didn't you tell me, Remy? That you knew Ah was a part of the Black Womb project too?"

His smile was wry, resigned.

"So dat was what she told you, huh?" He didn't look half as sheepish about it as she'd imagined. "Truth is, Rogue," he continued matter-of-factly, "I didn't know how t' tell you. You'd been hurt enough already, been put through enough shit to be told dat de better part of your life's been a coldly calculated lie."

"Ah dunno." She gave a humourless laugh. "Livin' with Irene and Mystique for half your life, you kinda get used to it." She turned to him. "How 'bout you, Remy? How do you deal with it?"

"By bein' who I am, _chere,_" he answered simply, looking down at the card that was now standing, still and upright, between his fingers. It was an Ace of Spades. "Not'ing else makes any sense." He stood up straight and flipped the card back into the pouch at his belt, finally turning to her as he did so. "How much did she tell you?" he asked her curiously. "De Black Womb, I mean?"

"Everythin'," she answered, suppressing a shudder when she heard him callher_ that _name. "That you were born there, at the facility. That you were Essex's crowning achievement, that your powers were Omega level but that you couldn't control them, because the Thieves Guild could never teach you to." She glanced over at him earnestly. "He helped you, didn't he? Took out a part of your brain, lowered your power levels, brought them down to something you could manage. That was the leverage he held on you for all these years, wasn't it. He still has that piece of you, he still won't give it back. He _still_ has a hold over you." He said nothing and she continued desperately: "Why didn't you tell me, Remy? Why didn't you just tell me the truth?"

All through her speech he'd stared at her, measuring every word, every nuance; but on her final question he looked aside, back to the water, his brow furrowed.

"Tellin' de truth ain't easy, _chere_," he replied quietly. "Especially when it comes t' myself." He looked across at her again. "Is dat all y'came t' tell me, Rogue?"

She bit her lip and looked back to the river. Their reflections were ghostly and insubstantial in the water.

"Irene told me that her and Raven planned to take you outta there just like they did with me. They wanted to raise you, keep you safe. Irene knew how important you would be. But Amanda went crazy, started tearin' up the facility… By that time Sinister already had you; they managed to get me outta there and back to Caldecott, but you…"

"But I ended up wit' de Thieves Guild, and screwed up their grand plan for de future." He laughed with just a strain of irony. "I'm glad."

"Are yah?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"_Oui_. Can you imagine what kinda person I woulda turned out to be if Irene and Mystique had raised me? Not to mention if _we'd_ been raised together? As brother and sister?" His grin widened. "Always thought de X-Men were kinda incestuous, but dis woulda given de concept a whole new meanin'…"

"Don't joke about it," she remonstrated with him. "Maybe Ah wouldn't have liked your sorry ass so much if you _weren't_ brought up by the Thieves Guild."

"So 'like' is what you call it, huh?" He looked amused. "But maybe you right, _p'tit_. Whatever shit de Guilds threw at me, dey were still one helluva family. Not sure Irene and Mystique woulda been… Tryin' to fit me into dis crazy future of theirs…"

"_Who_ brought you up ain't the point, Remy," she told him soberly. "The point is where you ended up. Where you are now, and where you'll be in the future." She looked down at her hands, the breeze cooling the sudden heat on her cheeks. "Y'know what Ah think? Ah think it was _always_ Irene's intention that we be pushed together. She tried to make it happen, from the very moment we were both born… but we ended up on different paths. For a little while." She looked up at him again, into his eyes, said: "The more Ah think about it, the more Ah believe that it was those different paths that brought us together… Maybe how Irene wanted to play things wasn't the way things were _supposed_ to be… Maybe Fate worked against her."

"You're assumin' dat dis Fate crock is for real, _chere_," he returned seriously. The breeze had blown that white lock of hair into her face again and he reached out absently, tucking it back behind her ear in a gesture that he'd performed so often before. At his touch she stilled for a moment, before shaking her head gently.

"But it _is_ real."

"How do you _know_?" he quizzed her.

"Because Ah have her powers now, Remy, don't I. Because Ah can see too."

He looked at her, a frown creasing his face, his hand still at her ear.

"I'm not sure I like dat," he muttered reflectively.

"Me neither," she confessed.

"So tell me somet'ing, _chere_?" he queried again. "Why would Destiny want us together? Mystique sure as hell didn't." And he let a grin touch his face at that.

"Ah don't know. Ah don't think Irene ever discussed it with Raven, to be honest."

"Hm." He nodded absent-mindedly, as if it made sense to him. "When I was at de Brotherhood's place, after what happened wit' Rachel down at de Hound Pens, Irene knew I was gonna take you wit' me."

Rogue was surprised at the revelation.

"She knew?"

"_Oui_. She _wanted_ me t' take you. She never said so, but I got de feelin'…" He paused, seemed to realise that his hand was still behind her ear. He dropped it, slipped it back into his pocket. "I asked her once _what_ it was she was playin' dis whole Fate t'ing for. She said 'for everythin'. Dat was about as much as I got outta her." His glance became penetrating. "Why don't _you_ ask her? She's in your head after all."

"She don't play nice," she answered peremptorily, and he grimaced.

"Like dat, huh? Hope she don't give you no grief, _chere_."

"No. Not anymore. Not as much as she _could_, anyways." She looked away, leaning back against the rails with her elbows. The truth was, she _could _have looked… but she was too afraid of what she might see. She had already seen enough – enough for a lifetime. She didn't want anymore.

"Looks like her plans failed though," he spoke up sarcastically from beside her. "It's not like we're together anymore, is it?"

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"So _that's_ what the past few months of silence have meant, Cajun?" She pouted sulkily. "Ah don't _recall_ us ever havin' broken up…"

"Technically, I don't remember us ever havin' got _together_…"

"Oh, so the whole, 'we take things day by day, see where it leads us' thing… That was just somethin' Ah dreamt up, was it? Or was it just part of the _game_, Remy?" And she couldn't help the resentment from edging into her voice.

"I meant exactly what I said. Day by day, _chere_. Came a day when I left. Didn't know you were still holdin' out for somet'ing."

She looked up at him sharply, hurt, fury in her eyes.

"The way we parted… It wasn't exactly like we were never gonna see each other again. Ah thought—"

She looked away quickly, unable to finish the sentence, knowing her temper would get the better of her and that she'd end up being incoherent. And really, what did it matter? He was right. It wasn't like they _were_ together anymore.

It sure _felt _like something was still left undone though.

"I'm sorry," he spoke up after a long moment of silence. "Truth is, I didn't have de guts to call it a day on us."

She let out an angry, pent-up breath.

"Me neither," she admitted softly. Calm fell; she dared to look him.

"Did yah _want _to?"

"_Non_," he answered honestly.

"Neither did Ah."

They gazed at one another, silent, as the implications of their words sank in. Presently he reached out, drew an arm around her shoulder and said: "C'mon. Let's walk a bit."

They walked down the pier together, his arm still about her, the closest they had been to one another for longer than she cared to mention.

"Be honest wit' me, Rogue," he spoke once they had walked a few yards together. "You ain't told me de whole story, have you. Destiny's been givin' you more trouble den you've been lettin' on."

She looked up at him with a level gaze, and he smiled wryly at her.

"Come now, Rogue. How long were we together? Dere some t'ings you can't hide from me." He looked away and added softly: "Just like dere're some t'ings I can't hide from you."

"Remy…"

"_Non_," and his voice was stern, "no 'Remy'. Not in dat voice you do so well, _chere_. Be honest wit' me. You've seen t'ings, haven't you. In your dreams. You seen de future, and you're here because _I'm_ in those dreams, aren't you."

She couldn't lie. Not to him.

"Yes."

"And whatever work Irene and Raven were doin'… You want to carry it on, don't you. You want t' finish what dey started, am I right?"

She halted in her tracks and he stopped too, turning to face her, his arm dropping from her shoulder. She opened her mouth to get words out, only to find herself completely tongue-tied.

"Come on, Rogue," he said impatiently. "You take me for a fool? You come here, talkin' about Destiny and her prophecies… about de past she tried to make for us, about de Black Womb project. I ain't stupid. I saw a connection once too. Me and Sinny, and you and Destiny and Mystique… and in de middle, de Black Womb. But you know what, _chere_? _Thousands_ of mutants were subjects on de Black Womb project. We weren't de only ones."

"The others were mistakes," she told him with certainty.

"Now you soundin' like Sinny." His expression was dark. "You buyin' into _his _crap too?"

"We serve a purpose, Remy. After everything that's happened, you can't deny it." He shook his head vigorously, disdainfully, and she continued earnestly: "Honesty's like trust, Remy – it's a two-way street too. And Ah know you well enough to know that the fact that Essex has a piece of your brain ain't the _real_ reason you're still taggin' along with him. What you _really_ want to know is _why he made you. _And why he's still so darn interested in you, even after all these years and all the grief you've given him."

That shut his mouth – she had to consciously refrain from letting the satisfaction show on her face.

"All right," he spoke at last, belligerently. "You're right. Looks like we know each other too well, _chere_."

_Because we were made for each other_, she wanted to say, but she bit back on the words, fought against just how much she ached to say them.

"So whaddaya want from me?" he asked, spreading his hands out. "Looks like Gambit's everyone's damn pawn, so what de fuck does it matter?"

"Ah need you to help me," she returned as calmly as she could, ignoring his little boy tantrum.

"Of course you do," he snorted.

"Remy, _please_…"

"Y'know, Rogue," he began, coming in close and jabbing his finger in her chest, "I spent a lifetime 'helpin' out' others. First de Guilds, den Essex, and den Destiny t'inks she can screw wit' my life. But de _last _person I expected dis from was _you_. _You_ were de one who was supposed to help me escape from all dat shit."

She looked down at the finger that was still poking her chest, reached out calmly and pushed it away.

"Ah'm _the one reason_ why you _can't_ escape it, sugah."

"_Really_?" A sneer crossed his face. "You know somet'ing? You're right. So maybe dat's why I should walk away right now and pretend I never met you in de first place."

He swung round with a swish of his coat and stomped off, and she half expected him to stop and turn back, but he didn't; after a few brief moments he rounded the corner of the pier and was out of sight.

Silence fell again, the charged atmosphere of his presence dissipating into thin air. Rogue drew out a long breath, trying desperately to relax. _Relax? That'll be the day, girl_. Because the truth was her heart was running away with her and her stomach was in knots since she'd seen him again. Ten long months… no, more… and she realised now how much they had killed her. Waiting for something she wasn't going to get back. Meeting him here, tonight, had been a cruel and unusual form of torture.

She turned away and walked back to the railing, smiled sardonically at her own reflection.

_Way to go, Rogue. You just went and alienated the one person you needed in all this. The one person you could trust_.

So now what? Rachel was gone, and she wasn't entirely sure that Raven and Irene weren't at cross purposes with her. There was Logan… But Logan believed in all this even less than Remy did, and besides, he didn't have what she needed. Still, she _did_ trust him… He was the only one she trusted besides Remy. And she needed an ally.

She sighed and rubbed her face with her palms. For the first time she began to realise the grinding _slog_ that came with Irene's powers. That need, that drive to _make things right_ – it was all-consuming. Lonely. She understood now why Destiny had clung so hard to Mystique. It was to have some shield, some buffer, from all the terrible loneliness and responsibility that came with this burden.

Perhaps it was the real reason she'd sought out Remy.

_Remy._

She dropped her face into her hands again, her breath coming sharp and shaky on an upsurge of pain. She was trying to be clinical about this. She was _trying_. But he'd never walked away from her like _that_ before. And it hurt. It hurt like fuck.

No point in mulling it over. It was time to go back to base and figure out her next move.

She walked slowly along the length of the pier, turning her collar up against the sudden chill in the air as she rounded the corner onto the main street.

She stopped.

_He_ was standing there, leaning against a storefront halfway down the road, fanning a pack cards in his hand, fanning and shuffling, fanning and shuffling, all forced nonchalance. Waiting for her, as he always did. Waiting for her to come to him, so that he didn't have to go to her. It was only then that she allowed herself to hope, in a way she hadn't done in a long time.

She blinked and wiped her eyes before gathering her wits and walking up to him, stopping only when she was right there beside him, watching the blur of the cards between his long fingers. He didn't look up at her, didn't even say a word to acknowledge her.

"Remy…" she began, soft, questioning, not knowing where to begin.

"Rogue," he cut across her pause in a mutter, "I couldn't forget you if I tried. Even if I _wanted_ to."

The cards whirred softly in his hands. She reached out and grasped his wrist, staying his movements. Only then did the cards stop.

"Remy…" she murmured. There were still no words she could find. His name seemed to be more than enough, at least to her. He glanced at her. Hard. Needful. _Conflicted_.

"You ask me for help, _chere_," he spoke in a low voice. "What makes you t'ink I should give it to you?"

"You're still here, ain'tcha?" she returned, still light-headed with relief, with _emotion_. And his mouth hitched.

"Wouldn't be me if I didn't wanna case out a potential _deal_, Rogue…" He levered himself away from the wall and she released her grip on him reluctantly, her arm dropping to her side. He turned to face her, closed the pack of cards one-handed, slipped them back into his pouch. "Especially if you're gonna lay somet'ing _interestin' _on de table in return…"

She sucked in a breath at the insinuation.

"No jokes, Remy," she murmured, and he reached out, brushed that same lock of hair behind her ear again and said: "You t'ink I'm jokin'…" His laugh was soft, sardonic. "Kind of ironic, neh, _chere_? I tell you de truth and you still t'ink I'm playin' wit' you…"

It was what he did. Lie, manipulate. Say things to smooth a path of least resistance. She was no exception. She never had been. And she was at her weakest right now, now when she needed him most.

"Ah ain't a fool, Remy," she told him seriously. His fingers were still warm, pressing against that sweet spot behind her ear, and she took his wrist again, pulled his hand away. "Ah _know _you wouldn't be standin' here waitin' for me if there wasn't somethin' in it for you."

And his voice was low, charged as he said: "Maybe _you're_ de t'ing dat's in it for me…"

Her hand tightened instinctively on his wrist.

"_Stop it,_" she hissed, but his face remained straight, this time betraying nothing.

"Stop what, _chere_?" he asked her quietly. "You still don't believe me?" He took her free hand with his own, placed it against his cheek. "So take de truth from me, _chere_. Absorb me. You've done it before, it won't make any difference."

"You _know_ that's not true," she retorted heatedly, but he wasn't halfway done yet.

"Really? You don't seem to be too worried about talkin' to de 'me' up dere in your head. If dat's de case, why don't you absorb me right now? Everyt'ing you need t' know will be right dere. _Everyt'ing_. All my secrets, all my lies." She stared up at him dumbly, and he pressed her hand tighter against his face, continued in a furious rush: "And you still t'ink I'm playin' you, _chere_, when I've laid everyt'ing right here in front of you, Rogue. All my cards on de table. You can have it all, _chere_. _All_ of it. All of _me_."

She hesitated. He didn't understand. Didn't understand that it was his _future_, not his past, that she needed to see, that she needed to secure. But there was temptation in his offer. She knew, deep down, that he didn't believe she would do it. But that didn't stop the fascination, the lure, of uncovering all his truths in one fell swoop. Why he was here, why exactly he had gone back to Sinister, why he was taking this path that was leading him so far away from her… She would know it all, if only she dared. If only she dared to break what trust he had in her.

"You know Ah can't do that," she told him on a breath.

"You did it once."

"When there was nothing left to lose."

There was a silence; her grip on his wrist loosened. He felt it; his hand moved back behind her ear and this time she didn't remove it, even though her fingers lingered about his wrist.

"So dis how you play it, _chere_. No risks, all bets off till dere's not'ing left to lose," he stated softly.

"You _know_ that."

"_Oui_. But I'm wonderin' now – what is dere left to lose, _chere_? How high are de stakes? What are you playin' for?"

Her gaze darted to his again. He'd bluffed her. Prodded and pried in an attempt to see how far she was willing to go, how important this was to her. A part of her wanted to hate him for it. The other part felt a thrill of triumph that he knew her so well.

"Ah'm playin' for _you_, Remy," she rejoined, tracing the line of his cheekbone with her thumb.

"So I see." The corner of his lips twitched. "But how much you gonna put on me, Rogue? How much do you _need _me?"

She paused, her thumb hovering against his skin, still held against his face by the pressure of his grip. Whatever invitation he had given to her, it was still open. She could still absorb him. With all the risks involved.

"If Ah absorb you now, whatever Ah learn from you won't change what you do in the future," she explained in a low voice. "Only _you_ can do that."

"Hm." The white lock of hair was escaping from behind her ear and again he held it back, smoothing the errant strands back into place and caressing her almost casually as he did so. "So. What dis all comes down to in de end is just how much you can manipulate me into doing what you want, and how much I can manipulate you in believin' you want somet'ing else entirely."

He was infuriating. Toying with her like this, still prodding and poking her, wanting a reaction from her to gauge. She wasn't going to give it to him.

"Ah was hopin' more that we could manipulate one another into somethin' we _both_ want," she returned, with just a hint of tentativeness, of sweetness, in her magnolias voice. He heard it and paused. His eyes blazed fire.

"Now who's playin', _chere_…?"

"No. No playin', Remy."

"Bullshit, Rogue. Dis what we do. Play games wit' each other…"

"And Ah still have feelin's for you. That's not a game, is it?"

The words shut him up. He blinked, his eyes flashing in the dimness, a noisy breath leaving his lips.

It was a missed beat she took to her advantage.

She disengaged her hand from his and turned away.

And she'd barely taken a step when his grip snapped over her arm.

"_Rogue_," he spoke – hoarse, urgent.

She turned back to him with her heart crashing wildly against her breast, feeling that this hard-won victory was one that could be stripped from her in a stone-cold moment. For a horrible, delicious moment he said nothing, seeming to fight an inner battle she could see but couldn't quite understand. He didn't _want_ her to go. But he wasn't sure how to make her _stay_ either. All this time he had been playing an angle, and it had failed. Now he was holding back, reassessing, re-evaluating. She could sense it.

"Ah know what Ah want, Remy," she spoke quietly, gravely, over his silence. "And Ah don't want _this_. Lies. _Manipulation_. Ah'm at a disadvantage here – Ah have everythin' to lose and Ah know it. But Ah need your help. And Ah'm beggin' yah here. Ah need you t' be honest with me. No playin', Remy. _Please_."

They gazed at one another. Wordless. His hand still on her arm.

His eyes glinted in the light of the streetlamps.

And he drew her in. Slowly. Pulled her towards him step by step. She only let him because she needed him that much – on more than one level. It was that need – strong and sure and completely sincere – that allowed her to be reeled back into his space, more so than Irene's prophecies, Irene's assurances. And when she was right there in front of him he took her face between his rough, warm palms and held her gaze so she couldn't look away.

"No games, _chere_," he murmured passionately. "You t'ink I would have come here if _I_ didn't have _feelin's…_?"

It was exactly what she needed to hear. Her teeth pulled at her lip to suppress a whimper; and at the sound his gaze dropped, ran over her mouth intently.

"I have feelin's, Rogue," he continued, his eyes still on her lips. "You t'ink I can even formulate a damn plan, a damn _lie_, when I'm near you?"

No…

_Yes…_

Because he_ always_ lied. And he was probably lying right _now_…

But her heart was beating so crazy, so fast, so _greedily_ that she ignored it.

"Your feelin's and mine ain't the same thing, Remy…"

And he almost looked genuinely surprised at that.

"Really? How so…?"

And she couldn't help herself, not even when she knew it entailed throwing all her cards on the ground face-up before him…

"Because Ah'm still _in love_ with you, Remy."

And he sucked in a breath.

As if she'd stolen it away.

Finally, _finally_, he was silent.

And she wasn't even sure which one of them moved forwards first, but suddenly they were kissing, deep and hard and _real_ after all their fencing; and they fought one another, with all the hunger and need that the past year had inflicted upon them, fought to get closer to one another, closer than was possible. For a few moments, there were no words, no thoughts – just sensation, pure touch – and she was dizzy with it, with him, with the void inside her that couldn't be filled no matter how close she held him, because it had been _so darn long_…

She broke away, only to surface, only to stop struggling for a closeness that couldn't be, just to _hold him_ to her and _feel_ it for a moment. She buried her face in his neck and _breathed_…

But his hand twined in her hair, nudged her head back gently, his mouth covering hers again in a velvet kiss, this time slow, unhurried. Taking her lead, trying to make this _nice_, soft. And even then it seemed to pass in a blur. She wasn't even sure when it had ended, just as she had no idea how it began.

They stood in the dark of the night for a long time after, foreheads pressed together, stealing fleeting kisses from one another, convinced that each would be their last until another followed. It was only when they heard the sound of a Sentinel approaching that they drew apart unwillingly.

"Bad place to be loiterin'…" Remy muttered as a hulking form came over the line of buildings across the street. It halted, paused, and its eyes blazed into life. The entire length of the road was illuminated in the beams of its gaze, bright as daylight; but Rogue and Gambit had both slipped into an alleyway before the circle of light could touch them.

"It goin'?" Remy asked, as Rogue peeked round the corner.

"Nope. It's just stayin' there."

"Hm. Takin' its time t'night. Wonder why."

The next moment the reason became clear. The sound of inhuman howling was carried clearly on the night breeze, unholy shrieks that sent the hackles of most people – mutants or statics – standing on end.

"Hounds," Remy swore under his breath. "_Merde_."

"We're downwind from them," Rogue warned him. "We'd better go."

He took her hand in his, tugged her towards him.

"Come wit' me."

-oOo-


	6. Dance

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Hi guys! So... In the past 2 weeks, the lovely **jpraner **has been good enough to beta-read this entire story, and I have had to do some substantial rewrites, notably to this part of the narrative. The previous chapter has been chopped in two - one part at the docks, this part at Gambit's apartment. This part has had a major rewrite, and is now quite different to how it was before - mainly to set a more appropriate tone and mood to the following chapters. I hope you all approve of the changes! Also, if you have time, please do read the changes to the previous chapter, even though they are probably not as important as what happens here.

Thanks again to all my reviewers for your helpful comments! I'm so glad you've been enjoying the story so far! And a HUGE thank you to **jpraner **for taking on the mammoth task of reading and commenting on this beast (and doing such a good job of it!) - not to mention for the extra snippets you kindly wrote. Your help has been invaluable, dear. (And if you've not read her work so far, please do, as it is stellar!). :D

In other news - _House of Cards _ and _Twist of Fate_ are now available for purchase on Lulu. Please check out my FF net front page for the links if you wish to buy them (the links will not show up in-story). Please note that I am not earning any revenue from sales of the books - all you pay for is material costs and shipping. Thanks. :)

-Ludi x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART ONE : GAMBIT_  
**

**(6) - Dance -**

He guided her through a maze of alleyways, quickly, quietly, her hand in his.

He didn't let go of it, not until she took it back herself – somehow, she needed to feel that this was _her_ decision, that wherever he was taking her to (and she knew _what_ he was taking her to, if nothing else) she was not being led.

Behind them the drumbeat of the Sentinel's footsteps faded the further the distance they put between them. The sound never fully died though; and neither did the Hounds' howls.

"Where're we goin'?" she asked after a few minutes.

"My place," he replied in a hushed voice.

She almost halted then. _Almost_. Not because she didn't want what she knew was coming, but because there had been no preamble, no lead-up; and certainly there had been no resolution down on the docks.

He seemed to sense that split second of hesitation.

"It's safe and it's close," he explained in a hushed tone. "You know a better place?"

He half looked over his shoulder at her, and she realised that he was giving her an out. He was giving her the chance to turn back, to say no to him.

But her eyes locked onto his, and she tried to communicate that she knew her own mind, that nothing would turn her.

She said nothing, and neither did he.

One beats, two beats; he turned and the moment was gone.

-oOo-

His apartment was even shabbier, even less lived in than the old safe house had been.

As soon as they'd got in he'd crossed to the grimy rectangle of window and pulled the threadbare curtains partway over them. They had barely kept out the nauseating brightness of the flickering streetlamp that stood, soldier-like and impassive, right outside his room.

He'd peered between them, judging the distance between them and the Sentinel, muttering irritably that it was still headed in their direction, like he knew it was just going to be a horrible distraction from whatever would follow.

Rogue had stood, silent and expectant, in the middle of the room, agonisingly aware of the fact that the only reason she was here was because of Irene's insistence that she should be so.

Well, that and the fact that – despite her misgivings – she wasn't sure she wanted his kisses to end.

It was the most tortuous kind of agony, and she could barely contain it.

So she stood there, watching him, illuminated only by the bluish glow of the lamplight. Almost trembling under a clamour of emotions that threatened to strip her away to bare bones and a palpitating heart.

He snapped the curtains shut.

When he turned to her there was a look on his face, a hunger that he hadn't worn since those days, those_ nights_, spent in the safe house. It made her stomach flip flop.

Because he had never given her an answer.

He had never said he _wouldn't _help her.

But he hadn't said he _would_ either.

And he was still going to get her.

Because now he _knew_ she loved him, and he knew she wouldn't say no.

The knowledge of that chafed her.

But she still needed an answer from him. And – even worse – she needed _him_, period.

His gaze was so greedy, so intense, that she couldn't stand it. When he wet his lips she looked aside – if only to avoid the searing heat of that gaze – and shrugged off her jacket. Aching and uncertain. She paused, held it in her hand, chanced another look at him. And he was still just _there_. Looking at her.

It was like being under a spotlight, burning up beneath it. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing to say in the face of it.

And so she said nothing.

Not for the first time she questioned what it was he wanted.

How much of this was lust, and how much was something more.

He must've read the question in her eyes for he suddenly moved forward – slow yet assured – covering the space between them. He stopped within an arm's length of her and held out his hand.

Her answer was to hold out her jacket.

He took it, he looked at it; he threw it aside.

And she felt a breath tremble, suspended there, in her throat.

What hold did he have over her, that made her walk towards him? How on God's earth could a man exert such a pull, reel her so easily into his orbit?

Whatever he wanted, _truly_ wanted from this meeting, she wasn't sure; just as she knew he wasn't sure what it was _she_ truly wanted.

But she was sure of one thing.

They both wanted _this_.

And despite her love, the mistrust in her made her halt when she stood right before him, so close she could sense his warmth and almost feel the crash of his heartbeat.

He moved first.

Leaned into her, putting his face into her hair, running his fingers lightly over her cheek. Her heart soared and it sank. His tenderness, his softness spoke of sincerity. It spoke of all the things she felt, but did not dare to let go of lest she give herself away.

But… _But._

How could she refuse him when he came to her like this?

She couldn't. She raised her face to his and almost at once his lips were on hers, followed by the slow crush of his mouth; unhurried yet insistent, deep yet somehow restrained. As if he were holding back. As if he wanted _her_ to take the lead, despite the fact that they both knew _he_ held the power. Not her.

The realisation made her pull away from him by a hair's breadth, breaking their kiss.

She gazed up at him and caught her lower lip beneath her teeth, assessing as she did so just how much she had to lose. He hovered there needfully in those few heartbeats of indecision, and she knew he was wilfully staying himself from chasing down her kiss. It gave her heart. It gave her the hope that he cared more about her needs, her _feelings_, than whatever it was that he thought he could gain from all this.

"What?" he murmured softly, unable to help himself from leaning forward and kissing her lower lip, pulling back again only when she remained silent.

And he was still waiting, waiting for _her_ to be the one to want this; and she made up her mind. She took his hand in her own and guided it gently to the zipper of her bodysuit and whispered, "Here."

Permission having been given, he didn't hesitate.

He tugged the zipper down, right to the bottom; and she pushed the sleeves off her arms as he pushed the rest down over her hips and her thighs and her legs, until he was right there in front of her, a supplicant on his knees in silent worship.

A painful breath lingered in her throat.

He slid a finger under the side elastic of her plain cotton panties and_ looked_ at her.

He warmed her with his breath and waited for her to say _yes._

She panted, aroused and exposed and utterly in his control, despite knowing that this was an opening that he wanted _her_ to dictate.

She didn't know how to say it. That it mattered more to her that she could trust him, that the past few months hadn't really been _the end _between them.

So she said his name instead, on a quivering wisp of a breath.

"_Remy_…"

He seemed to recognise her summons. Slowly he backed away, kissed a trail slowly up her body, over her navel, her stomach, between the valley of her breasts, up her throat and the slope of her chin, finally recapturing her mouth with his own and… …

And suddenly it was all happening so fast, so slow, as they finally undressed one another item by superfluous item of clothing, leading one another to the bed as they did so, in a dance as artless and untimed as Nature herself. When at last they got there she stood before him as he sat on the edge; there was another pause, another moment of _give_ or _take_, and as she teetered precariously on that moment of indecision the Sentinel passed by the window, its searchlight scouring over the flimsy curtains and sliding over her naked skin with a warm and tawny glow.

Instinct took her and she froze under its impassive gaze.

"It's de Sentinels," Remy said thickly; he reached out, placed a longing hand on her hip, hesitated. "We're okay, _chere_. Just pretend dey ain't dere."

The searchlight passed over, sinking them once more into an inky darkness. Only when it was gone did Rogue let out a trembling breath, caught once more in that terrible pause, his eyes on hers. He was the one to move this time, reaching out and taking her hand in his, pressing a kiss to it just as he had used to do when they had been _together_. That was when she gave in. That was when she joined him on the bed.

She had almost forgotten what it was to touch him.

In all the months they had been apart she had imagined this moment, replayed it endlessly in her head with a feverish intensity, turned it over and over this way and that, trying to get it pitch perfect. She had imagined the carefree joyfulness with which they had made love in the holiday home or their little room in Chicago, the casual familiarity they had had with one another's bodies.

This was different.

Tentative, unsure. Exploratory – but no less sweet for that.

She knew he had been wrong when he had said that they'd never really been together in the first place.

Because they had, they _had_, whether they'd meant it or not. And it was confusing and painful and hurtful as hell because they'd never ended it, not _really_, and yet here they were in this no-man's land, feeling their way back into a space they thought they'd covered long before, a space where neither was sure what they now meant to one another.

Except that they both somehow knew that a part of it had gone back to being make-believe – a role that Rogue felt she was no longer good at playing anymore.

Her feelings were right there, lingering under cracks and seeping out through fissures. It was trickling out in kisses that were too soft, in caresses that were too gentle. Her choreography, her earnestness, gave too much away.

And yet… this wasn't merely a transaction to him, not the way he had implied on the docks. She could tell by the way he bore the intimacy of her tenderness. No matter how he postured or played he was unravelled by her touch. And when she touched him, the way he looked at her, looked a thousand yards away from her… it betrayed enough – just enough – for her to believe, perhaps to know that, free of Irene's dubious assurances, they still had each other.

A searchlight brushed past the window again and she froze beneath him, seeing his hair glint like bronze in the heat of its glow, the planes of his face rise and fall into stark cliffs of light and shadow. His eyes were on hers, glowing like embers as the light winked out and left them both in darkness.

She still couldn't move, fearful that the spotlight would come again; and he leaned into her, trying to ease her out of it by kissing that spot behind her ear and whispering, "Say somethin'."

And she couldn't, her heart was too full, her mouth was thick with love for him, and he backed away and looked right into her eyes, silent and beseeching.

"Say somethin', _chere_."

"What?" she murmured.

"I dunno. Anythin'."

Anything? Anything to take his mind away from the fact that this was too loving, too intense?

"Like what?" she asked; but he said nothing, dipping his head, kissing her neck, her shoulder, her breast, running his tongue over first one nipple, then another… His fingertips grazing the length and breadth of her body, replaced only by the familiar roughness of his palms, torturing her, trying to get her to _speak_…

"Remy…" she gasped, her hand in his hair; and he climbed back upwards, raised his face to hers, only the merest hint of desperation in his voice as he begged her, "_Say somethin'…_"

His eyes burned like fire in the night. She knew what he wanted. Something to make things the way they _used_ to be. To make it light-hearted and uncomplicated, like the summer days, the summer nights spent sparring with their bodies and their lust and their witty sweet-nothings. It wrenched at her heart like a physical thing.

And so she said it.

The first thing that popped into her head. Something honest and true.

"Ah've missed you, Remy."

It wasn't what he had wanted to hear; but the effect it had on him wasn't what she had expected either. The noise he made in reply was lustful, impatient, low and guttural, sexier than all hell; and just as he nudged at the entrance of her – that was when the Hound pack screamed.

Her body went rigid.

"_Damn_," he blasted on a hot breath as the cacophony continued, so close that it seemed to be right down on the streets below. It was more than enough to send a chill down even the most hot-blooded man alive. Several heaving heartbeats passed wherein the din refused to die, and when it showed no signs of abating Remy swore and rolled onto his back beside her.

"Fuckin' assholes got you up here wit' me, " he muttered almost incoherently, his accent slurred more than usual with unfulfilled desire. "But I guess dey don't know when de fuck dey ain't wanted no more."

The Hounds went right on and on screaming on top of him. At that point even Remy had to fall silent. They both knew what the ungodly song meant. Some unfortunate soul was being tracked. It was a hideous fact that hung in the air between like some thick and cloying oil slick. Rogue could not help but sense the roiling resentment he felt in the face of it.

Without thinking she shifted onto her side, compelled by a sudden need to syphon off the tension from him. His breathing was rapid, each breath chasing the next, his torso rising and falling with its syncopated rhythm. She reached out impulsively, brushed that lined and scarred body with just the tips of her fingers, loving the way his muscles twitched and balked instinctively under her touch.

He hadn't expected her softness. His gaze darted to hers and she couldn't deny it – it nailed her like an arrow and she was powerless to hide from it. She wanted him to be as vulnerable as her; she wanted to hear him say it.

_We were always together._

_ We never stopped._

_ This is just us picking up where we left off._

But he didn't. And she wasn't foolish enough to believe that nothing had changed, that maybe he hadn't mentally gone right back to somewhere called _square one_.

It didn't stop her from touching him though, from questing over the valleys and ridges of his body – the hardness of his chest, the curves of his ribs, the line running down his stomach to his navel.

She halted.

There was a scar on the side of his abdomen that was different to all the rest – small, circular, star-shaped – one that she'd barely clocked before. She ran her finger over it, marking it out, tracing its contours with the tip of her nail. Something tugged at the back of her mind, and she realised – with a vague yet inexplicably avaricious intensity – just how tempted she was to read the history of that scar with a single _pull_ of her vampiric power.

Somehow he seemed to sense her thought. His fingers suddenly caught her own, easing her hand into his grip, drawing it away.

She raised her eyes to his then, seeing that his breathing had changed, each exhalation skimming from between slightly parted lips in long, measured bursts, like her touch both soothed and terrified him in turns.

Outside, down below, the Hound screeching retreated to somewhere a little less intrusive.

"Rogue," he said.

It wasn't a question, wasn't a statement. It was what it was. A name, a clarion call.

He took her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles one by one until her breath came fast and light.

"Remy…" she murmured, giddy; and he kissed the inside of her wrist, whispered, "_Beautiful…_"

Wordlessly he eased her once more onto her back; his grip locked her hand above her head, his body surged over hers with too much impatience to leave her in any doubt as to what he wanted.

His eyes devoured every inch of her face and he muttered as though impelled, "I've missed you too, y'know… Your hair… your lips… your mouth…" He moved forward, feathering kisses against her jaw, adding, "your skin… against mine…" And his free hand traversed her body, making her shudder and shake as he put his mouth against her ear and finished in a muffled tone, "Your eyes, _chere_…"

His palm ran the swell of her hip and her buttocks as she thought about all the ways she had missed him that didn't involve _this_.

The texture of his hand in her own.

The sound of his laughter, his _genuine_ laughter, warm and light and full of joy.

The way he let his shields down, just for her, the way she knew he _wasn't_ doing now.

And she wondered whether he ever missed the same.

Whether he ever missed more than just _this._

His hand hooked her knee and lifted her thigh, hiking it up against the flat, muscular dip of his waist, the hard, steep ridge of his hip. His arousal pressed up hotly against hers, the brutal connection saying more than his words, than his kisses.

She gasped.

He bit his tongue against a feral smile that had nothing to do with tenderness.

And yet he was still hovering.

_Waiting_.

For _her_.

"_Gawd_…"

She panted.

"Tell me you want it, _chere_," he ground out like a man possessed.

And for a few incoherent seconds the thought passed her mind that it was a miracle either of them could say _no_ when they were both _right there_ and all it would take was a single _push._

"_Tell me_," he almost growled, and she didn't understand it, she didn't get his hesitation, but her mouth was too dry to make a reply… And so she answered the only way she knew how – she shifted, pressing a foot up against the small of his back, just a _hint_ of insinuation and…

Insinuation was all he needed.

His hips flexed almost involuntarily and _god god god_ he was sliding inside her again after all this time and…

The sound that came from the back of his throat was primal, beautiful, almost painfully erotic; and she realised, somewhere in the dizzying midst of it all, that she was making the exact same sound too. There was a split second – a pause – where he looked almost stunned, where it seemed he could barely believe that this was happening.

And she reached out into that space.

Stroked his face with a trembling palm.

Awakening him with her touch.

And _oh God._

They were _moving_.

Sweet and blissful and heady and absolutely no thought outside of one another. It was exactly as it used to be back in the early days of their relationship, the ones played out in the safe house, when everything was all heated exploration of one another's bodies and nothing else. That was what the long months had taught them. How to want and need and hunger again. How to be greedy and lustful and irresponsible. How to want and have it all.

And then she felt it. An almost audible clicking into place, as if something _right_ had just slotted into the space where it belonged.

It stayed there, quiet, lodged at the back of her mind. A moment there, then gone – flickered out.

Moments, minutes later – she wasn't sure – she lay on her back on the bed as if washed up on sunny shores, basking in the afterglow of her orgasm with an overwhelming sensation of calm satisfaction.

And for a while – just for a while – the future was where it belonged – in the future.

...

Later – he stood by the window in his boxer shorts, a cigarette in one hand and his cell phone in the other, pressed to his ear. He didn't say much. Just the odd 'uh-huh' and 'yup' and finally 'I won't', before he ended the call. She watched from her seat, cross-legged on the bed, as he stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray on the windowsill, closed the pane shut and turned back to her.

"Damn," was all he said.

"Work?" she asked him, plaiting off a section of her hair absently.

"_Oui_."

"Essex?"

"Yeah."

He glanced over at her appraisingly. She didn't say anything; but she was certain the tautness of her lips must have given her away, because he looked aside as though uncertain what to say. Despite the glorious intimacy they had just shared, Rogue was horribly aware of how near and yet so far he seemed, even in the smallest of actions. Him working for Sinister was the least of it. It was the fact that he was smoking again, that he was obviously hiding _something_ from her; that this apartment was barely lived in and she suspected that he only used it to bring other women here. It was all of these things and more. It was the fact that there was this huge gulf between them, that she was only here on a wing and a prayer and she could barely even trust to the fact that he was on her side anymore. But she was here. She knew she wanted to _be_ here.

And best or worst of all, she needed his _help_.

"Shitty boss?" she asked him, trying to sound nonchalant and not quite succeeding.

"Heh." His eyes were still on the floor, his expression as indifferent as she couldn't bring herself to be. "Not so much shitty, _chere_, as demandin'. But he pays fuckin' well."

She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"So why _this_ shithole?"

And his smile was wry.

"Don't get me wrong. It ain't like Sinny ain't got a nice, fancy set-up. But he don't appreciate some of my dirty habits." He levelled his eyes to hers, the corner of his mouth twitching. "You know me, _chere_. I only come here to _indulge_." He let the words linger meaningfully between them, an excruciating moment that was only interrupted as his cell phone pinged. He swore and turned, walked back to the window again as he read whatever text or email had appeared.

"Oh, so Ah'm a dirty habit now?" she queried tartly, fully aware that he didn't want her to see whatever was in that message.

"_Non_. You're a very _good_ one. My _only _good one." His reply was absent-minded. He paced a bit, reading the message over and over and over.

She watched him silently, wondering. Wondering just how much he was playing Sinister for a fool, if he really _was_ still on the side of the angels. She didn't doubt that he _thought_ he was, but even so… doubt still lingered. It was what her dreams of the future had taught her. Everything must be doubted, until it came to pass.

She tugged the bedcovers up a little higher against the chill of the night air, wishing that it wasn't _him_ she had to doubt.

He was quiet now, looking out the window, leaning against the sill with both hands as if some heavy burden rested between his shoulders. She wanted to reach out and console him, even if she knew that he wasn't willing to be honest with her about whatever it was he was still doing for Essex.

"You said you needed my help," he spoke at last, his tone heavy, still not facing her. " So. What did you have in mind?"

She stared at his back, holding her breath. Here it was. The moment. He'd accepted her plea for help. And now that he had, she hardly knew what to say.

She knew instinctively, however, exactly what to say to hook him.

All she needed to do was play from an angle, to come in from leftfield, to make it sound like a deal he couldn't resist. She didn't even have to consciously formulate an answer. Suddenly it was there on the tip of her tongue without her having to think it.

"That's a hard question to answer," she spoke at last in a quiet voice. "Ah know what it is that Ah _don't _need from you."

That piqued his interest. He turned to face her, his expression expectant.

"Go on," he said. She looked at her fingers, not sure how to put this.

"Ah need you _not_ to be on Essex's side."

His expression was closed, flat as a mirror surface; but his eyes shot to hers and stayed there. Sharp. Unwavering.

She said nothing, tongue-tied under the force of his gaze. She was afraid, afraid of pushing him away from her again, of losing his hard-won acceptance – even more, of making him resent her, despise her. In the end she didn't have to explain it. After a moment of silence he rejoined her on the bed, looked straight into her eyes and said:

"You've _seen_ t'ings, haven't you."

She nodded.

"_Merde_." He took in a breath. "I _knew_ it. I _knew_ dis was all about those crazy Diaries…"

His phone pinged again. He lifted it up again instinctively, but she took it from him, switched it off and threw it onto the other side of the bed.

"Rogue…" he began, his voice teetering on the edge of both exasperation and helplessness and she stopped him.

"Listen to me, Remy. Ah don't need you t' _do_ anythin' for me, Ah don't even need you to believe any of this. Ah just need an ally. Ah need _you_. You're the one person Ah need more than anyone else, and if Ah don't have you…" She halted, unable to say those next words, swallowing them down before she _could_ say them and make them somehow _real_.

_If Ah don't have you, Ah'll die._

He frowned.

"I don't understand," he spoke softly, seeing her turmoil. "I pick and choose my loyalties carefully, _chere_. I don't give out my trust willingly. But you've always had both. My loyalty _and_ my trust. Despite all de other shit," and he waved his hand as if they'd all just been a nuisance – her whoring, her absorption of him… "Do you even need to ask, Rogue?"

His words gave her heart; but nevertheless she hesitated. She was desperate not to hurt him; but whatever she said to him she knew she must, in some way. Again he saw her turmoil, and his face went very still.

"What have you seen?" he asked her softly, gravely.

"It might not be the future, Remy. It's only a _possibility_…"

"I know how it works, Rogue." His tone was flat. "What have you seen?"

She took a breath. And another. Just thinking about it… the dream… where everything was _wrong_… the knife at her breast… And later, that vision of the future… Sinister's needle in her arm… And him, standing at Essex's side… just thinking about it killed her.

"Ah… Ah see you, Remy," she explained at last, trying not to falter even as she began. "You, with Sinister. You…Ah think you let him _kill_ me…"

His eyes went wide. And yes, she saw it all in there. Surprise, disbelief. Pain. Denial. He looked away from her, shook his head slowly.

"Dat ain't possible," he spoke after a long moment, through gritted teeth.

"How do you _know_?" she whispered, and his gaze was penetrating as he replied:

"Do you really believe I could let anyone hurt you, Rogue?"

"You don't know what the future could bring, Remy," she reasoned with him. "Or how your feeling's could change. Just a moment could be all it takes…"

He shook his head again, his lips held taut.

"After everyt'ing I've done for you, wit' Kincaid, wit' Guess… You t'ink it could be possible dat I could stand by and watch Essex _end _you?"

The words were so seriously, so gravely said that she _wanted_ to believe him, even if she felt so certain that there was something else, something _more_ that he wasn't telling her…

"Ah couldn't believe it either," she murmured helplessly. "But every day the dreams get clearer and clearer. You're on a trajectory, Remy. And Ah can't stop you. Ah've tried so hard to derail it. That's why Ah called you today. Ah figured if Ah told you everythin', Ah could stop it all in its tracks…"

And she hoped to God her gamble had paid off…

He stood and ran his hand through his hair; she sensed that whatever burdens he had had before she had added to them. She reached out and clasped his free hand.

"Promise me, Remy," she begged him urgently. "Promise me you won't let this happen. Not for my sake, but for yours. Whatever hold Sinister has over you, you have to break it. Otherwise…"

_Otherwise he'll just end up ownin' you forever…_

"You don't understand, Rogue," he returned quietly, looking down at her. "What it is between me and Essex runs deeper than just blackmail, or even a sense of loyalty. It's coded into my DNA."

"Ah understand," she half-whispered. "He made you. For a purpose you still don't know. But he doesn't _define_ you. He doesn't make you the man you are today. And just because he made you doesn't mean you're soulless, or bad or evil or wicked. You've proved that a thousand times over."

"Have I?" He looked both unconvinced and helpless in turns, so much so that she took his hand, the one she still held, and placed it upon her cheek. She believed in him, whatever her dreams told her. She _believed _in him. "Come back to me, Remy," she whispered. "Come back to _us_. We need you, Remy. To end the Sentinel's rule, to end the killing…"

He laughed softly, shaking his head.

"And you still believe dat, _chere_? Even after Rachel abandoned us? Destiny was right. She _was_ a saviour. Just not for _us_. She changed the past… But it didn't change our future. She did de sensible t'ing. She escaped into de Timestream. Accept it, Rogue. Dere's no way we can change anyt'ing now."

So he'd heard about Rachel too. She guessed Essex had better intel than she'd first thought.

"So that's what this is all about, Remy? Stayin' with Essex is _easier_ than…"

"Savin' de world? Absolutely."

She held his gaze; he held hers. There was little else to be said. He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her lips, chaste but lingering, before standing to recover his phone from the other side of the bed. She slid in under the covers, turning over onto her side, wondering just how much she had succeeded in staving off this awful future, if indeed at all. She understood his choice; she even understood his need to put his own interests above everything else. But she didn't dare to believe that his will was greater than Sinister's, no matter how much confidence he had in that fact.

Whatever message he'd picked up on his phone, it didn't take him long to read it. Presently the weight of him settled in next to her, and his arms encircled her from behind, his chin propped against her shoulder. Just like old times. When he pressed a kiss into the dip of her shoulder, she could almost have believed they were a world away, back in the safe house, back in a time where they were selfish enough to think only for and of each other.

But that was then and this was now, and now meant _nothing could be trusted,_ _until it came to pass._

-oOo-

_She's there._

_ Under the August moonlight._

_ "Be there," he'd said. And everything he hadn't said had been implicit in the silence that followed._

_ If you're not there, I'll understand. I'll get it. I'll leave you alone. You won't have to say a thing t' me about it again._

_ Sometimes she hates him. His irreverence, his pig-headedness. His refusal to just damn well back off. __Whenever she parries his attempted seductions he ducks and weaves and comes right back in around them. Like he's pinning down a butterfly. _ Throw enough darts and one is bound to hit.

_ She hates it, but she's flattered by it._

_ It's why she's here, walking along the shore of the lake, down towards the cedar tree._

_ She's intrigued to know what this is all about. Whether he really _will_ back off if she tells him she's had enough and this is _over_._

_ She's scared, but for some reason she's upped the ante. Worn that white dress she knows he likes. Left her hair down, the way she can tell he prefers from all the many times he's subconsciously loosened it when she's let him get close enough to touch it. She's even wearing the butterfly pendant. True, she rarely takes it off these days, but… he doesn't need to know that. It's nearly always hidden underneath her uniform and her thick, formless sweaters anyway._

_ He's already there, under the graceful boughs of the ancient tree._

_ She half pauses, caught in a sudden and gut-wrenching hesitation; but at exactly the same moment he looks up, he sees her there; and she has no choice. She continues. She joins him._

_ "Rogue," he says._

_ It's simple enough, a single word, but he makes it sound like a thousand beautiful things – like red silk sheets and melted chocolate, like summer siestas and sun-warmed skin. It's not her name but she loves the way he says it. She loves the way it makes her feel._

_ "Ah'm here," she says, trying for lightness, familiarity – but her tone is one of shyness and intimacy and she's almost embarrassed by it, even more so when his gaze grazes over her, when he shows her just how much he likes what she's done for him._

_ "You look beautiful, _chere_," he says, and she parts her lips to make a suitably blasé reply which doesn't come._

_ He smiles like he knows._

_ He stretches out a hand and says, "I want t' show you somethin'."_

_ She trusts him. Despite all the parrying, despite the way he always holds something back when he's with her. She puts her gloved hand in his._

_ He leads her away from the shadow of the tree and the moonlit mirror of the lake._

_ He takes her to the boathouse and there's something in his walk – his ever so slightly hurried pace, his silence, the way he looks ahead, never back at her. He's impatient. This is something he's waited far too long for. It makes her nervous._

_ He only glances at her when they arrive. His eyes over his shoulder. Silent. Assessing._

Definitely_ holding something back._

_ They climb the creaky wooden steps up to the veranda and she stops._

_ There is nothing so passé as roses and chocolates, but on a small wicker table there is wine, and the scene is illuminated only by the light filtering out, soft and tawny, from the boathouse windows. She gapes. If she's still breathing she's barely aware of it._

_ She can't say a word._

_ "You don't like it?" he asks from behind her, and she flounders there with her mouth half open._

_ He's taken her on picnics, to Harry's Hideaway, to the fanciest restaurant in town. He's even managed to coax her back to his room… But this is different. Warm. Cosy. Intimate. More so than anything else he's dared to impart to her in the short time they've known one another._

_ He's made an effort for her, despite the fact that she can't trust him, despite the fact that she pushes and pushes and sometimes just plain tells him to fuck off because she can't _stand _his closeness anymore. He's _still _made this gesture._

_ This can't be a trick. He _has_ to care._

_ He steps up onto the deck and turns to her._

_ "I want you to like it," he says. He takes her hand again, runs his thumb gently over her fingers. "Do you?"_

_ She still can't speak. So she swallows. She nods._

_ He smiles, not quite with relief but with something close to it. He turns away and walks over to the wine on the table whilst she slowly climbs the last squeaky step. She runs her hand over the railing as she walks, overcome with a powerful desire to tear off her gloves and answer his earnestness, his sincerity. _

_She can't. She's too afraid. But she's close to _not_ being afraid. She's close to throwing all caution to the wind, and it won't take much for her to do so._

_ "I wanted t' bring you somewhere nice," he's saying; she hears the clink of wineglasses behind her. "Somewhere dat isn't strange, y'know, but somewhere where no one's gonna get in de way. Where we can be alone."_

_ She swivels and sees him turning the corkscrew._

_ "'Ro said there was gonna be a storm t'night, but I asked her t' chase those clouds away for us, _chere_, so there ain't no need t' worry…"_

_ She stares._

_ He pops the cork._

_ He pauses and throws her a look._

_ "You gonna say somet'ing, _p'tit_?"_

_ She opens her mouth._

_ "Ah didn't think—" she begins and abruptly stops._

_ He sees the look on her face, and in the ensuing silence he places the bottle down and comes to her. He takes both her gloved hands in his, looks into her eyes and says, "What? Dat I cared?"_

_ And she finds her tongue._

_ "We barely know each other."_

_ It isn't what he expects her to say. His brow furrows, questioning._

_ "So?"_

_ The gaze she replies with is earnest._

_ "Why can't you tell me about yourself?"_

_ And he raises an eyebrow._

_ "Why can't you touch me?"_

_ Silence._

_ She looks away first._

_ "You know why Ah can't."_

_ "Non," he replies seriously. "I don't. There's a reason why you can't control your powers, chere. You gonna tell me what it is?"_

_ He's still holding her hands in his. They're so warm beneath the soft silk opera gloves, warmer than anything she's ever touched._

_ "Because… Ah'm scared," she explains simply, shamefully._

_ "And why d'you t'ink I can't tell you about myself?"_

_ She looks up at him. There's something in his eyes. A kind of sadness. And she feels it then – her love for him. It's the first time she really, truly acknowledges it. That she's _in love_ with him._

_ He lightly squeezes her hands before he drops them._

_ He goes back to the glasses and pours out the wine._

_ And she feels he's given something to her._

_ Something he's never given to anyone before._

_ And it's the greatest prize he could ever bestow upon her._

_ The trust that he has in her._

_ The faith that, with her, he can and will be honest._

-oOo-


	7. Betrayal

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Hello readers! Apologies for the short note this week... I am currently on holiday in Italy and I literally just plugged this in without checking it too much so I could post it on the go. Hope you enjoy it! More next week... ...

-Ludi x

EDIT 30-9-2014: Light editing, grammar, punctuation, small deletions and insertions.

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART ONE : GAMBIT_  
**

**(7) - Betrayal -**

They were both awoken the following morning by a deafening _BOOM_ that seemed to emanate from a place not so very far away.

Rogue was up like a shot, sitting up in bed as the sound reverberated through the room, making the walls shake and the furniture rattle. Remy was even faster, throwing back the covers and making for the window before she'd even managed to clock that the sound had come from outside and not indoors, or a dream, or even her own head. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell these days.

"What the _hell_ was that?" she exclaimed, as Remy threw open the window and leaned out to have a look.

"_Merde_," he muttered under his breath; the look on his face cut through the fog in her head like a knife.

"_What?_ Is it the Sentinels?" she cried, alarmed, clambering out from under the covers haphazardly.

"_Non_," he replied. "Not de Sentinels."

"Then _what_?" she persisted, confused and irritated, as she scrambled into her underwear and joined him at the window. The skyline was cold, grey, the sun having barely just risen. There were no Sentinels. There was, however, a thin line of black, acrid smoke curling out onto the horizon several blocks away. It was getting thicker and heavier by the second.

"Bomb?" she suggested.

"Possible," he answered.

Any further conversation was cut off by their phones pinging almost simultaneously. At the sound they shared a look, a tacit acknowledgement that the intersection of all these events was one coincidence too many. Both turned and went for their phones with the sense that what they were about to hear was not going to be good.

There was a single message on her cell, from Logan.

_WHERE R U?_ was all it read.

She was about to text him back when there it was again.

_BOOOOOOOM!_

The sound was louder this time, the aftershock shaking Remy's ashtray right off the nightstand. He was on the phone already, changing into his gear at the same time, faster than she'd ever seen him get dressed before.

"I'm on it," was all he said, before chucking the phone onto the bed and pulling his shirt over his head.

Rogue gave up on the text and speed dialled Logan instead. It barely rang before he picked up.

"Where the _fuck_ are you, Rogue?" he yelled into the phone. In the background she could hear shouting, screaming, the sound of debris falling. She decided to dispense with the pleasantries.

"What's goin' on?" she asked him instead.

"I need you here _now_!" It looked like he wasn't the only one jettisoning the idea of communicating useless information. "Look out the nearest window. When can you get here?"

"Ten tops," she answered breathlessly. She was already halfway into her bodysuit as she said it.

"Make sure it's no more than that," he barked, before the line went dead.

She cast the phone aside and shoved her arms into the sleeves of her suit, zipping up just as another _BOOM!_ shook the room. Remy was already fully dressed, shrugging on his trench coat as she made a grab for her boots.

"_What_ is going on?" she exclaimed, bewildered, as the room juddered with enough force to make the ceiling rain cobwebs. This time Remy deftly caught the lighter as it jumped off the edge of the nightstand.

"My next paycheck, dat's what," he replied, exhilarated, as he dropped the lighter into his coat pocket, seemingly enjoying every moment of this. She didn't have time to voice the sudden misgivings welling up in her at his remark. The next second he had crossed the room towards her, caught her up in his arms and kissed her passionately. Whatever suspicions had newly formed in her mind, she forced herself to hold them back for a moment as she wound her fingers into his hair, kissing him back with equal passion. It was only when another _BOOM!_ sounded that they tore apart, both gasping for breath.

"See you on de other side, _chere_," he grinned, before turning and running right out the room without her.

She swore, looked for her jacket, found it in a heap in a corner, tugged it on as she ran after him out the door… only to find him nowhere in sight.

"_Wait! Remy!_" she hollered down the hallway.

There was no reply. He was already long gone.

-oOo-

By the time she'd got to the source of the commotion, the explosions had stopped.

The fires, however, had not.

An entire gas station, the source of the smoke and flames, had been completely totalled. Telltale cracks and chasms criss-crossed the complex as if a localised earthquake had hit it. The gas station had spilled its guts and those guts were now a raging inferno that was getting worse by the minute.

"Rogue!" Logan's voice called from somewhere nearby. She spun round just in time to see him approaching her from a nearby convenience store that had also been hit by the tremors. Over his shoulder she saw Jubilee and Synch ushering out some scared customers who'd been stuck inside.

"Logan!" she cried, jogging to meet him. "Mah God, what the hell happened here!"

"Sinister's Marauders," he replied, catching his breath as he came to a stop. "They were attackin' civs, God fuckin' dammit!"

Suddenly the damage pattern made sense.

"Arclight," she intoned darkly.

"Yup." He nodded. "She pretty much came in and wrecked the joint. The others got to the people in the gas station before we could."

"_Shit_," she muttered. She had to admit, he was being pretty calm about this, considering the level of carnage going on here. Under normal circumstances he'd be tipping over into a berserker rage. But that wasn't what was bothering her right now. What _was_ worrying her was the fact that if Sinister's flunkies were the cause of all this, then Remy stood a pretty good chance of being involved in this too.

"Where are the Marauders now?" she asked him quickly.

"That's what I'm worried about," he growled. "They hightailed it while we were takin' care of the civs that were still breathin'. Emma's workin' on it right now." He paused, shouted over his shoulder at Jubilee who was calming the scared crowd of statics nearby. "That all of 'em, Jubes?"

"Think so!" the girl shouted back, and Logan looked as satisfied as he could. Rogue had heard enough.

"Ah'm gonna go look for them," she said decidedly, turning away from the inferno.

"Yeah? And where you gonna look?" Logan's expression was piqued. "Wait for Emma to finish her scan. Likelihood is, they've split up."

"Or they're runnin'. You want them to get away?" she retorted impatiently.

"If they came and pulled a stunt like this just to run away, why the hell would they bother? Think about it, Rogue. The Marauders go for government facilities and mutant internment camps. This place has no strategic value to them whatsoever. It's a ruse. A ploy to get _us_ to come out. Now they're tryin' to split us up."

Rogue bit back on her protests, acknowledging the logic of his words. But what he didn't know was that Remy had something to do with this, and she knew that if she told him that, he'd probably end up gutting the man. Which happened to be the last thing she wanted.

Just as she was about to give in, Emma walked up and interrupted.

"Rogue," she greeted the other woman sarcastically. "Nice to see you actually made it."

"Shut up, Emma," Logan shot at her before Rogue could. "Just gimme the lowdown."

"Arclight's off the radar," Emma reported just a little begrudgingly. "Probably gone into reserve. I'm sensing Harpoon and Riptide somewhere close, but it's bloody hard to tell with all the chaos going on round here. The statics' fear is just making way too much white noise. Speaking of noise…" As if on cue, her words were curtailed by the sound of sirens screaming in over the horizon. "Seems like we're getting some emergency personnel into the mix."

"Good," Logan spoke gruffly. "Means they can see to the statics while we go after the Marauders. Sense anythin' now, Emma?"

She glared at him.

"I'm not a performing monkey, Logan," she snapped irritably. "Do you know how draining it is to home in on one person when all this _cacophony_ is going on in the background? Having all these sirens makes it even—"

Whatever she would have said remained unspoken. She was cut off mid-sentence by a glowing white slither of gas pipe screaming towards them at break neck speed – with only seconds to spare she had turned diamond, the charged missile exploding right in the centre of her back. Out of sheer instinct, Rogue had ducked and rolled even before Emma had hit the ground. When she looked up again she saw Emma's now non-diamond form lying inert, bloody and burnt, amongst the splintered shards of piping.

There was no doubting that the makeshift missile had been sent by Harpoon.

"_Shit_!" Logan spat, looking this way and that, trying desperately to gauge the projectile's trajectory. Rogue knew that wherever it had come from, Harpoon himself was probably long gone. Logan knew it too.

"Get under cover!" he roared to whoever was in earshot. "They're here!"

No sooner had he got the order out than another explosion rocked the nearby gas station, throwing Rogue off of her feet and into an already debris-strewn street. For a few seconds all she saw was stars, all she heard was the sound of her ears ringing. When her senses started to level out she saw that she had crawled behind a nearby car. Lousy cover, but the best she could do considering the situation. Logan and the others were nowhere to be seen.

She propped herself up against the car and into a squatting position, paused a moment to catch her breath. She needed to reassess. The truth was she had no idea where any of Sinister's goons were, and out here on the street she was a sitting duck. And then there was Remy…

_What the hell are you up to, Cajun? What is this all about?_

She ran into an alleyway opposite her, peeked out round the corner. Most of the street was, by now, engulfed in smoke – she couldn't see anyone she recognised in the melee of scared and injured citizens. A convoy of fire trucks, ambulances and police cars suddenly zipped past her and ground to a halt. She knew better than to be seen. She was just about to turn and run when she saw him.

Remy.

Standing about a hundred yards down the road, by the cordoned off entrance to a subway station that was under construction. Looking right at her.

He smiled when he saw that she had noticed him, turned, and leapt over the construction sign like a gazelle, down into the depths of the subway. She could only do what she knew he wanted her to do, what _Irene_ wanted her to do, and that was follow. She slid out of her hideaway and ran down after him.

Strip lighting fizzed and popped above her head as she stepped onto the main concourse, flickering with every rumble and jolt of the battle on the street above her. She navigated the powered down ticket barriers with ease, came to a stop in the middle of the hall. There were escalators leading down on both her left and right; elevators were in front of her. Another thud sounded ominously from above. Dust shook loose from the ceiling, obscuring her view with a fine filter. She turned a full circle, seeing nothing, no trace of him.

_Where are yah, Remy…?_

Then she heard it. A buzzing, a crackling, from somewhere behind her and to her right, emanating from one of the ticket gates she'd just passed through, growing louder and louder and—

_Shit!_

She dove for cover that wasn't there, just as the charged gate exploded; she skidded across the floor on her belly, dust and plaster invading her mouth, and…

_CRASH!_

The entire entrance caved in behind her in a cascade of broken masonry.

She was trapped.

She swore viciously, spitting out the grit on her tongue.

_Fuckin' Cajun fuckin' trapped me down here when there's a war goin' on up there and people _need_ me…!_

And yeah. She was pissed now.

Rogue stood slowly as the dust settled, angrily brushing herself down with a brusque sweep of both hands. So he wanted her down here, for some reason she didn't think she wanted to figure out – certainly not when _his_ people were up there attacking her own, not when Emma was badly injured and God knew how many civs were dead. And here they were again. Him playing an angle, and her hopelessly stuck down here till she could find another damn way out.

"Damn you, Cajun," she muttered under her breath, pinching out a single singed lock of hair. The truth was, she knew he wanted this – her, all mad and unfocused. So she bit down on her irritation, called out in a cooing tone:

"Remy? Where are yah, sugah? Why dontcha come out t' play, darlin'?"

She heard it then. The light _clatter clatter_ of boot steps on the escalator to her left, the slap of his feet as he hit the bottom and then—

Silence.

_Leadin' me on a song and dance are yah, Cajun? Yah know better than to think Ah' d fall for this. So what is it you _really_ want, sugah…?_

And more to the point, why was she bothering to walk into whatever funhouse he'd set up for her?

_Irene_, she answered herself breathlessly in her own mind. _Irene told me to trust him. Irene told me he's the only one who would _help…

And maybe that was exactly what he was doing.

Keeping her down here, keeping her _safe_. Protecting her from certain death up topside.

It _had_ to be.

He _had_ to have known this was going to go down, and now he was trying to keep her out of it, even though he knew she wouldn't like it.

And much as she appreciated his _concern_, there was no way she was leaving Logan and the others in the lurch.

She scanned the ticket hall quickly, seeing no evidence of an exit.

_Damn_.

But there had to be one _somewhere_. Maybe a maintenance staircase or _something_…

She slid down the escalator banister, and when she hit the bottom she scoped out the circular hallway there. Nothing. Surprise, surprise. Buckets and tools and slabs of cladding, bare columns, plastered and white-washed and awaiting decoration. The walls had only just been rid of their covering of vintage advertising; the ceiling was nothing more than a skeleton of metal beams and bars.

She went to the nearest door and rattled the handle. Locked. She didn't even think about it. She channelled his power, charged the lock and _BAM!_ – the door swung open noisily with the blast. There was nothing inside but an old office stuffed with more building materials. No exit. No escape.

She cursed.

And that's when she heard his footsteps _pitter-pattering_ somewhere not too far behind her.

Rogue swung round, infuriated.

Again – nothing.

"Ah'm here, Cajun!" she called out in a voice less tempered with the sweetness it had borne before. "So why don't you come out and tell me straight what it is you want?"

Her voice echoed, then faded.

_It's a waste of time, girl. He's distractin' you, tryin' to get you away from the others…_

She was just about to turn and leave when she caught it out of the corner of her eye; the tail of his coat, disappearing behind a column halfway down the corridor. He'd thrown her a bone, and both of them had known she was that pissed she'd pounce on it. She sprinted down the passageway after him, and when she rounded the corner of the pillar she wasn't surprised to find that he wasn't there.

"Dontcha think you're too old t' be playin' games now, swamp rat?" she called out irately, and it was just as she had finished saying it that a charged playing card sailed past her, right towards the column she stood by. She swung out of the way as the missile connected with the concrete, just managing to miss the brunt of the explosion as she whirled round the other side of the pillar and hunkered down with her arms shielding her ears and face.

_KA-BOOM!_

The column spewed its innards onto the floor with a deafening _crash!_

Rogue stood, her back still pressed against the remnants of the pillar.

"Now that was just half-assed, Cajun!" she yelled mockingly, and she heard his footsteps, nearer this time, the sarcastic lilt of his voice answering from somewhere to the right – no, left – of her:

"It's not like you're tryin' hard neither, _chere_!"

"Ah would be if Ah knew you weren't just playin' games!" she hollered back, and she swung round the pillar letting out one of Rachel's psychic bolts as she did so, and hit – nothing.

_Damn!_

Where _was_ he…?

"No games, _chere_," his voice echoed in answer, this time from down another corridor that branched out to her right.

All right. No games. So why this round of hide-and-seek?

She followed his voice, through a short, grimy corridor and into another hall which had once been for interchanges. Nothing here had been touched. Everything was grey and peeling and smelled of mould and decay. At some point it seemed to have served as a storeroom. Random bits and pieces were littered here and there, ladders, paint buckets, broken electronics, cables, wires, the odd wrecked door or two, discarded elevator parts…

And there it was. A stairwell off to the side, marked 'STAIRS TO EXIT'.

Like a bolt she went for it; and just as she was within a couple of metres of her escape route he was suddenly right there behind her, grasping her by the shoulders, twisting her aside, throwing her to the ground in a single fluid movement. Her back hit the cold slab floor with such force that the wind was momentarily knocked out of her, and she coughed, gasped, spluttered, rolled onto her knees with her eyes and lungs burning and… And this was _it_. She didn't care whether he was trying to protect her or not. She was _pissed._ For _real_.

She'd barely got her breath back when his boots stepped into view beside her, and she didn't waste a moment; she lunged at his legs from her position on the floor, and it was the _last_ thing he'd expected.

He slammed to the floor beside her with an '_oof!'_ and she didn't bother hanging around to give him an extra piece of her mind; she got to her feet and ran for the stairwell.

And he was almost on top of her again in a trice, grasping the back of her jacket and spinning her round to face him. She guessed he'd figured she'd be too off-balance to respond, but he'd misjudged her, underestimated the mounting level of her rage. As his arm came in to grab her again she twisted out of the way of his fist just in time, letting him grasp thin air, seizing his outstretched arm and levering the whole weight of him over her shoulder, tossing him into a pile of old, dismantled billboards nearby. He was up again like a jack-rabbit, jumping onto his feet and whirling away in the resulting cloud of dust, behind another broken pillar and — gone.

She huffed angrily, coasted round the pillar from the other side, finding him _not there_, syncing in with his psyche briefly, following his next likely trajectory towards a row of nearby vintage vending machines. Before she even rounded the corner she was striking out with her leg, and her boot hit the nearest machine with a _clunk_, sending it tumbling out the way and revealing him to her just as he was about to scamper away again. "So what is this about, Remy?!" she railed furiously, advancing on him step by step as he backed away from her slowly, cautiously. "You bringin' me down here to keep me away from the others?! From Sinister?!"

"_Maybe_," he answered breathlessly, his eyes on hers, unwavering. Serious. Even earnest. Like he was worried that if he let her out his sight for even a moment she might disappear into thin air. And she was wasting time down here with him, but she was too damn furious with his idiotic attempt at _protecting_ her not to try to whup him up the side of his head for it.

He seemed to sense just how mad he'd made her.

Just when he'd almost run out of room he ducked between two vending machines out of sight, and—

"Just. Stand. _Still!_" she grunted, heaving the nearest machine to the ground with Wolverine's raw strength. Just as it hit the ground she saw his coat tail whip round the corner; leaping like a gazelle, she made a grab for it and – _bingo_! She had it. The rage was so palpable inside her that she was almost surprised to find that, no sooner had she caught it than she had charged the goddamn thing.

_Shiiiiiiiiiiit!_

There was a screeching whine as the coat glowed brighter and brighter, as he stripped it off like she'd never seen him discard an item of clothing before… and just as the whine of the charge had reached an unbearable fever pitch he threw the coat up in the air above their heads.

In _her_ direction.

It exploded only a few metres above her head, and whilst she knew she was never in any danger of being harmed by the detonation, the force of the blast was enough to slam her right onto her backside as a snowstorm of singed and shredded leather fluttered like burnt confetti around her.

She spluttered, gasping for breath, tasting motor oil on her tongue as one boot and then another stepped in either side of her body, and somewhere right above her he said:

"You make it so damn_ easy_, Rogue."

She scooted backwards, trying to prop herself up on her elbows, but he lifted a foot and planted it squarely on her chest, bringing her down again.

"Uh-uh, _chere_, I don't t'ink so. You're stayin' right here."

His boot disappeared, and the next moment his face was in view, all sensuous lips and glowing red eyes, fixing her with a stare that was nevertheless coldly assessing as he saw her gaze dart this way and that, searching desperately for an escape that wasn't there.

"Still lookin' for a way out, Rogue?" he mused, his breath warm on her face. "How d'you reckon I can keep you here, _chere_, right where I need you to be?"

And she felt the answer to his own question – the weight of his body folding over hers, pinning her down, taking her breath away… And his face was so close to hers, his lips so near and yet so far, and she'd been here before, right here with him in a place not so very long ago…

"Well, _chere_," he cooed softly, "dis seems kinda familiar now, don't it?"

Too familiar. She could barely breath with the _need_ in her…

"If this is some ploy to get me away from the others when they need me, so help me God, Remy…"

"Logan will be fine, _chere_," he assured her, this time serious. "Don't worry."

He shifted slightly, easing a leg between hers and nestling there all warm and hard, and she found her breath coming in short, sharp laboured bursts, this time with a thread of_ want_ and not anger.

"You don't need t' do this, Remy," she murmured hoarsely.

"Do what?" he murmured back, tracing her lips with his eyes.

"_Protect_ me."

His eyes flickered to hers as if unwillingly.

"I'm a fool, Rogue," he spoke with real passion. "I can't trust you to take care of yourself. If anyt'ing happened to you, I'd never be able to forgive myself if I hadn't done everyt'ing in my power to keep you safe first."

No blink of an eyelid, no twitch of the mouth. Her heart was in her throat to hear him say it as if he meant it, as if it was the _truth_. And she just couldn't tell. She couldn't tell if it was the truth or not. Even after the years they had spent slowly orbiting one another, learning about one another, loving one another; even after feeling certain that she could read him even at his most withdrawn and pensive… she realized she didn't know whether or not he meant those words, or if he was just saying what he needed to cloud her judgement. It was the first moment that he had ever made her truly afraid; and it was only the memory of Irene's words that steeled her then – the assurance that _he loves you too…_

"Ah need to help the others," she insisted.

"And I need you to stay right here," he returned.

They stared at one another, both at an impasse. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to keep her safe, the way he always had done. Didn't he? If Logan knew that, he wouldn't hate him so much. He'd know that he was mistaken, that Remy was a _good_ man…

"Come back to us, Remy," she whispered, her eyes clear and pleading as she tried once more to convince him. "Come back to _me_."

"I_ am_ wit' you, _chere_."

"That's not what Ah mean, and you know it. You shouldn't be with Sinister, you're not one of _them_…"

"Shhh," he hushed her, leaning forwards and silencing her words with a kiss.

And she let herself kiss him back, her arms coming up about him and holding him close, wanting nothing between them but naked skin and one more night where they could forget about everything except each other…

And then she remembered where she was.

She dug her nails hard into his shoulder blades and he surfaced on a hiss of mingled pain and desire as she rolled them both over; the back of his head slapped the cold tiled floor as she did so and he blinked.

"You are some kinda fuckin' bastard, Cajun," she growled, pinning his wrists either side of him with an iron grip. "If you wanted to keep me outta this goddamn battle with the Marauders, you coulda gone the whole fuckin' hog and _prevented_ it from happenin' in the first place!"

And despite the fact that she had him cornered he smiled – actually _smiled_ at her – with a kind of savage contempt for the naivity of her suggestion.

"You t'ink I hold dat kinda leverage wit' Sinny?" he rasped sarcastically. "You t'ink I give dat much of a damn about Logan and the rest of his Brady bunch?"

"They probably think Ah'm dead right now!" she snapped acidly at him and he _laughed_.

"Let dem t'ink it, _chere_. I'm not done yet. I still want you somet'ing bad… You know it, Rogue. You've seen it in my memories, in my head… I can't get enough of you…"

He shifted his hips, ever so slightly, ever so subtly, bringing their bodies into perfect alignment, pressing her against him right _there_; and she gave an involuntary whimper, caught in a helpless onslaught of hormone-driven memories, lust-fuelled snapshots of the previous night.

It took every fibre of her being to grit her teeth against it.

"Ah ain't come down here t' make out with you, Cajun," she seethed, her hands gripping his wrists so hard that she felt her knuckles burn with the strain.

"Shame," he threw back at her gruffly, his smile flickering enough now to let her know she was causing him pain. "I kinda like it when you go all BDSM on me…"

That was it. Enough. He was dead. He was fucking _dead_.

With a feline growl she went for his throat, leaving his hands free for a split second she would end up regretting. Before she could even get a grip on him he'd whipped his arms out and slapped her hands away, slamming his palms into her shoulders and twisting her right back over onto her back with a heavy "_Whoof!_"

And she could've wriggled her way out in a jiffy, if his thighs weren't damn well locked round her hips with his business pressed right up against her like this was some screwed up kind of foreplay.

"Ah am so _done_ with this, Remy LeBeau," she fumed on a breath that nevertheless gave away just what he did to her. "If yah think this is what Ah want, you are sorely mistaken. Ah'm gonna ask you nice now – _let me go_."

"Funny," he muttered huskily. "Dat wasn't what you were sayin' last night…"

She glared up at him like a thunder cloud, trying to ignore the fact that the muscle in her thigh was spasming painfully from her attempt to stay as rigid and unyielding against him as she possibly could. "Last night is the _only_ reason Ah ain't kickin' your fuckin' ass right now," she snarled.

And a soundless laugh rumbled in his chest.

"I kinda figured, _chere_," he muttered, dipping her face within an inch of hers. "But I ain't gonna letcha get back up topside and get yourself fuckin' killed. And I'd rather not beat you t' a pulp to _keep_ you here. So how else you t'ink I'm gonna distract you, huh?"

He didn't need to wait for her to reply; the answer was right there before them without any need for words.

He kissed her again, this time torturously slow, his body moving against hers; and it was too much, she couldn't help it – her muscles gave way and she surrendered on a quivering moan, his mouth coming right up over the sound and catching it effortlessly on his tongue and… …

Time ceased to exist.

She barely realised how it happened, but somehow her legs were winding round him and they were rocking against their kiss, neither one wanting to break away first and _end this_…

_BOOOOOOOOOOOM!_

The sound was like thunder rolling somewhere overhead, louder than the explosions that had woken them that morning; the entire room shook, the old fixtures rattled; the lights flickered out for a split second and then back on.

Rogue ripped her mouth from Remy's and shoved him aside, panting breathlessly.

"What the —?"

_BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!_

This time it was louder, and the room rumbled ominously; plaster and dust sprinkled from the ceiling in pockets, as if a bomb had landed right above their heads. In a moment Rogue had scrambled to her feet, the heated haze of lust switching in a moment to the cold tidal wave of dread.

_Sentinels_.

It was their footsteps lumbering out topside, carrying them into their endless battle with the mutants, a war that had been waged for years now and would never finish. Rogue's gaze followed the trail of crumbling plaster as it fell from the ceiling, right across the entire length of the room.

"_Sentinels_," she hissed. "We haveta help the others!"

She was about to run when Remy caught her hand, halting her.

"No, Rogue!"

She shook off his grip, turning to him with sudden frustration as he got to his feet beside her.

"Are yah crazy, Remy? They _need_ us up there!"

"And I need you." He grasped her upper arm, forced her to face him. "Don't go, Rogue."

She saw it in his eyes. Worry… desperation. And something more. Something he wasn't telling her…

"What is it, Remy?" she whispered, the coldness in her dropping another degree. "What have you done?"

"Not'ing," he replied, pulling her in close again; but she didn't believe him.

"_You_ did this…" she accused him, but he shook his head, said with conviction; "_Non_."

She looked up into his eyes, those beautiful eyes, and it was still there, the concern and the alarm in them, a look he was trying to hide but couldn't, not from _her_…

"Ah don't believe you really know _which_ side of the fence you're on, do you Remy," she murmured, and he looked right back at her, answered with certainty:

"I know _exactly_ whose side I'm on, Anna."

His gaze was charged; she opened her mouth to reply, but as she did so the sound of footsteps clapped on the bare stone floor behind her, and she swung round, expecting anyone but the one person she now saw, advancing towards the two of them, swathed all in black…

_Sinister_.

And the past few minutes seemed to fall neatly and horribly into place.

"Well done, LeBeau," he congratulated his young protégé with that cold, cultured voice, a thin breeze of icy air. "I would have allowed you your fun, but as you can see, things have become a little… _inconvenient_ outside."

Rogue swallowed it. The betrayal. The carefully crafted logic of it, neat blocks all laid out side by side, step by step, like a child's toy edifice. She looked back over her shoulder at Remy. His expression imparted nothing.

"So this is your way of 'protecting' me, Remy?" she asked him bitterly, but he made no reply, his mouth a thin, straight line. Sinister chuckled softly.

"Ah, come now, my dear, you shouldn't blame him," he spoke up mockingly. "After all, the only thing Mr. LeBeau here knows how to protect is an investment. And look at it this way. You're much safer down here with us than you are up there."

As if on cue the room rocked under the slow, thundering _booooom_ of the Sentinels overhead; a sheet of plaster shook loose from the ceiling, crashed onto the ground between them. On instinct Rogue made a move towards the exit, needing to be _up there_ with the others; but Remy grasped her by her utility belt, and the next moment she felt the thrumming wisp of energy as he charged the material between his exposed fingers. He got what he wanted. She froze in place.

"You wouldn't _dare_…" she shot at him, but he shook his head, told her soberly; "You're stayin' here, _chere_. Sorry. I don't wanna hurt you, but I will if I have to. It's better for us both if you just play along and don't try anyt'ing."

"Yes, stay, play along," Sinister intoned mellifluously, finally moving to cross the space between them. "Do as he says, and you won't be harmed, Rogue. And I'd rather you _weren't_ harmed, despite what you may think."

Lies. She knew what it was he did. All those years, tearing mutants apart, trying to find his so-called _homo superior_, decades and decades of searching had remained, for him, unchanged.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, feeling the charge on her belt reverberate through her abdomen, not daring to make a move lest she set it off. He was within a couple of yards of her now. The deathly pallor of his face made his features more sunken and frightening than she'd ever remembered.

"What do you think?" he returned in a voice like velvet. "I want only _you_, my dear."

"So you can experiment on me?" she threw back with disdain, but he only laughed.

"Experiment? No, merely to _collect_ you, my dear. I am, after all, a collector. Of mutants."

"That's not what Ah remember," she retorted, low, accusatory. "Ah saw them, y'know. Years back, when Ah was clearin' out one of your labs with the X-Men… All those people you were usin' as test subjects… _They_ were mutants, weren't they. At least, some of them _used_ to be. The rest were just body parts in jars… Yeah, you're a collector all right. Of a sick, twisted, _perverse_ freak show!"

She'd thought the righteous indignation in her voice would rile him, but the laugh he replied with was loud, raucous, filling the hall with the harshness of its echo.

"_Them?!_" he exclaimed incredulously, as if he couldn't quite believe her words. "_They_ were not worthy to be a part of my collection! They were mere worms, lab rats, undeserving of the X-gene that they had been blessed with. No! The _X-Men_ were _worthy_ additions to my collection. Sadly, most of them were eliminated forever by those simpering government fools, but enough remained in order for me to carry out my grand project. Oh, I collected a great many thanks to our _friend_ here –" and he shot an appreciative glance in Remy's direction, "yet, unfortunately, I lost the _one prize_ that I had set my sights on for so long."

"Rachel Summers," Rogue cut in on gritted teeth, and he nodded.

"Rachel Summers. The pinnacle of evolution. In her genes I would find the finest expression of _homo superior_ possible. She was to have been the gem in my collection." There was a light in his cold, red eyes, burning with a maniacal brightness that dimmed suddenly as he looked on her with a sneer of disdain. "Due to unforeseen circumstances, she slipped through my grasp. No thanks, in small part, to the two of _you_." Again, he passed Remy a penetrating glance and mused after a moment: "It seems I miscalculated. It seems I did not factor in the _effect _you would have on one another."

"How could you?" she levelled at him with a certain savageness to the words. "What the hell would _you_ know about—"

"What? _Love?"_ He said the word with scientific curiosity, nothing more, nothing less. "I know something of it. The pull it has. Delicious and fleeting temptation. It is transitory. A hindrance, an inconvenience, to great work. I abandoned it long ago." He stroked his chin as if lost in some inner reminiscence before continuing: "But yes. You were – _are_ – still young. It takes time – years, decades – to overcome the inclinations and limitations of the flesh."

"Flesh has nothin' t' do with it," she told him, but a small smile curved his pale lips as if in pity at her naïveté.

"I think you know it does."

She was tired of this. This dancing. It was time to end it. She swivelled her head slightly, shot a glance at Remy, said: "Let me go, Remy. Ah ain't gonna run."

He didn't second guess her. In the blink of an eye, the charge was gone. Rogue relaxed, finally easing out a deep breath, rubbing her sore abdomen. She looked up at Essex, who had watched their exchange with interest. She could almost see him making field notes somewhere in the back of that sick mind of his.

"You still trust him? Despite the fact that he has handed you over to me?" He stroked his chin again, grinning. "Interesting."

"Not really," she replied disinterestedly. The room rumbled again and more plaster crashed to the floor to their left and to their right. If they stayed here much longer, they'd probably get crushed. She could feel Remy was thinking the same thing. Sinister, however, seemed unconcerned.

"Why do you need me?" she asked him, stalling for time whilst she figured out an exit strategy. "Ah ain't no Rachel…"

"No," Essex returned. "Not by any means. But you're an X-Man. And you are… shall we say – _special_."

It was nothing new to her. She didn't like the way people thought she was 'special'. First Mystique and Irene, and now him. Being 'special' was not a good thing.

"And Remy?" she couldn't help questioning. "What about him?"

Essex's eyes narrowed.

"Yes. He is special too. Very special indeed."

She was measuring it. The distance between them.

"In what way?"

And biding her time, waiting…

"What does it matter to you?"

And there it was again, a faraway rumble, dust filtering to the floor from more pockets that had opened in the ceiling right overhead…

"Does he know why he's special? Is that why he's still workin' for you?"

And Remy spoke then, said; "Rogue…"

And _BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!_

A slat of plaster right above them worked loose and she took the moment in her hands, sprang forward and bowled right into Sinister, surprised to find that he was more _solid_ than she'd thought; that, whilst he staggered backward at the weight of her, she hadn't brought him down as she'd thought she would…

But there was no time to re-evaluate, it was either do or die, and as the debris smacked into the ground with an almighty _CRASH _behind her, she reached out with her bare hand, grasped at Essex's white dead face and _pulled_…

But there was no tsunami, no influx of memories flooding in over her.

Instead it was the cold hand of darkness, dragging her in and pulling her under.

-oOo-

- END OF PART ONE -


	8. Leech

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Many thanks to all my dear readers for all the well-wishes on my trip to Italy! I had an amazing time and got to see some fantastic things. It made me think the silliest things... Like someone should do a Romy-on-vacation fic... XD

So anyway... I wanted to also say thank you for the lovely reviews on the last chapter. I'm thrilled it went down so well, as it was a pivotal moment in the story, and also in what is to follow. To **FF2Addict**: the X-Men are going to bow out for the next couple of chapters, but will be back soon. **slightlyxjaded**: Oh, you picked up on the fact that he called her Anna, clever you! ;) **RRL24**: Yes, I feel the same way about the comics as you. I don't know why there has to be this huge chasm between them. Even friends with benefits would be great (sly nod to **spasticatt** there). **Warrior-princess1980: **Yes, she is. Or very nearly will, poor Rogue... **Sugahroc**: Glad all those suspicions and negative Remy vibes came through. I think half the time he doesn't really know what angle he's playing either. :p **StormBreeze**: I'm always writing! Even if it's only in my head! Well, here's the next chapter anyway! Hope you like it! :) **MeVoila: **You got exactly the emotions I wanted to put across! Thanks for the review, I always get a kick out of reading your thoughts! **Spasticatt:** But is he pretending...? ;)

A huge thank you and cookies also go to **SinfulVamp** and **rmm8127 **for the reviews and, of course, to **jpraner** for beta-ing... :)

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART TWO : SINISTER_  
**

**(8) - Leech -**

A moment of confusion followed; half the ceiling seemed to collapse, and in the ensuing dust cloud Remy lost sight of both Rogue and Essex. A few seconds later the dust had settled, and he saw Rogue lying, crumpled, at Sinister's feet.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice taut, controlled. Essex looked up at him calmly.

"She tried to absorb me," he explained in a tone that seemed to suggest great approval at the gall of the woman before him. "It seems her attempt was unsuccessful."

Remy stepped forward and knelt beside Rogue's prone form, rolled her over onto her back. He checked her breathing, her pulse. He pressed his lips together. She was alive.

"Why?" he asked, absently brushing a lock of white hair from her face.

"I'm not sure," Essex replied in a tone that told Remy his scientific curiosity had been piqued. "But it is just as well, I think, that it _wasn't_ successful."

Remy said nothing. Another roll of thunder sounded on the surface as the Sentinels continued their work. He wondered, with a detached curiosity Essex would have applauded, if any of his comrades up above – on both sides of the fence – were injured or dead. The truth was, he was distracted. Other things were foremost in his mind.

"You were late," Essex spoke accusingly. "The others had to start without you."

"Sorry," Remy replied in a tone that said he was far from it. "Was busy last night. Besides, we got what we wanted, neh?"

Essex merely grunted his assent. His countenance showed that he was less than impressed; but whatever reproach he would have made on that score was interrupted by another explosion above ground more violent than the last.

"We should leave," Remy suggested wryly. "Your goons ain't gonna be able to hold dose Sentinels off forever. Neither will Wolverine."

"Hmph. I'm sure he'll try. Perhaps he will even succeed. But he is of no use to me. I have read his files. _Weapon X_. Such primitive experiments. A waste of what might have been a useful mutation."

Remy made no comment. He lifted Rogue into his arms gently. Even Essex could see it – the tenderness with which he held her, an instinctive reaction, as one would have holding a fragile glass bird.

"Are you quite certain you know whose side you're on, boy?" he queried sharply.

Remy's reply was level.

"Of course. I give Rogue back to you, you give me back what's mine. Seems like a fair trade, neh?"

"You needn't worry," Essex returned flippantly. "She'll be taken good care of. And perhaps I may even be able to indulge your _fascination_ with this woman. You _may_ both have your uses yet."

And he chuckled ominously as he turned to leave with Remy following silently behind him.

-oOo-

Rogue lay out on the hospital bed, clothed only in a flimsy paper gown, her pale skin bathed in the bluish glow of the laboratory lights. She hadn't woken since her absorption of Sinister had backfired. He still wanted to know how it had happened. Or even _what_ had happened. He wondered if an absorption had actually taken place between them, and what – if anything – she had seen.

Remy grimaced.

He wasn't sure he would like to have Sinister lurking somewhere in the back of his mind.

He stood by the bed and watched her.

Rogue, still so defiant, still so resolute. Clinging obstinately to life with all the sheer force of will inside her. Even now, even after whatever it was that had happened to her, she was fighting. All the machines she was hooked up to told him so. Each and every one of her vital signs was strong, their stubborn onward march recorded moment by moment on the monitor above her head. Angry and impetuous – nothing short of tenacious. He had to admire it in her. He certainly knew Essex did. It was, of course, part of the reason that she was here at all.

Remy reached out, gently ran his fingers over the curved length of her collarbone. Skin the texture and colour of ivory. As soft as lily petals. Such an iron will in a body so soft and fragile and beautiful. He touched the butterfly pendant that she still wore round her neck. There was another chip in it. He smoothed his finger over it, tried to wipe it out.

The lab door suddenly whipped behind him open and he heard the swish of Sinister's coat tails as he entered the room.

"And how is our patient?" Essex's velvet voice inquired as he breezed past efficiently. Remy drew back his hand and stared at the monitor above.

"Fine. Better den fine."

"Hm." Essex stopped on the other side of Rogue's bed, followed Remy's gaze up to the monitors. "Interesting. Despite the psychic backlash she received, her brain functions do not appear to have been affected at all." He looked down on his quarry with admiration undisguised on his face. "She is indeed formidable."

Remy looked disinterested. None of this was anything he had not known before.

"So any idea why she couldn't absorb you?" he asked instead, turning away and moving to the computer terminals at the side of the room. It was almost time for Rogue's next shot. The computers had been set up to administer to her every hour or so, just to keep her asleep. She'd almost woken up several times before Essex had fine-tuned the dosage. Now she was pretty much dead to the world.

"More than likely, it is down to the fact that my genetic template has been so… altered," Sinister replied from the bed side, tapping away at the small interface there. "A mere theory, as yet, but something I will test to the full once she is more stable. If such is the case, it will be an avenue worth exploring."

Whatever this meant, Remy was not entirely certain; but he was used now to most of Essex's musings not making much sense. He turned away from the computer screens, back to Rogue. Sinister was looking down on her intently.

"What?" Remy asked casually, moving forward to stand once more by her bedside. Sinister did not look up.

"I will admit," he began with a small smile, "she is an … _intriguing_ specimen. One might almost see where your fascination with her lies, LeBeau."

Remy shrugged.

"Been 'fascinated' wit' a lotta women in my time…" he commented flippantly.

"Not quite like this one, though," Essex grimaced, and Remy shrugged again.

"She scratches an itch. She's good at it too."

"Your 'itches' hardly interest me, LeBeau," Essex scowled, looking back at the monitors. There was a soft, hissing noise as the IV drip in Rogue's arm automatically administered the programmed drugs into her system. "It is unfortunate that you have been allowed to indulge this weakness. However," and he began tapping on the small control panel before him again, "it is impossible to deny that the combining of your genetic material has the potential to produce some truly… _scintillating_ results…"

"Sounds like an interestin' experiment," Remy quipped wryly. "When can we start?"

Sinister raised a withering eyebrow in his direction.

"In this case the usual form of reproduction would be highly inefficient. Left to its own devices, nature is sluggish and wasteful. Evolution is a process that takes millennia, and nature is predisposed to manifest myriad random mutations before it settles on a finished product that is of any use at all. No," and he looked back to the control panel once more, his expression disapproving, "the only way to ensure a completely _successful_ outcome would be through the systematic combining of the subjects' genetic material in a sterile environment, where the effects of random chance may be kept to an absolute minimum."

"Sounds like a mood killer," Remy noted dryly.

"What it is, LeBeau, is logic. And nature has less of it than you might think."

"Dat's for sure," Remy muttered half to himself. "T'ink she was playin' a joke when she made de mutant race, neh?"

Essex glanced at him then. Cold. Chilling.

"On the contrary," he spoke icily, "it is my belief that _homo superior_ is evidence of nature _finally_ beginning to make use of logic. _You_ are the way in which the human species was always _supposed_ to be. For millennia now we have had to make use of crude tools in order to sustain our continued survival upon this planet. As organisms we are one of the most inefficient. _Homo superior_, on the other hand, possesses _useful_ gifts that aid the advancement of the human race. Finally, nature is sorting the wheat from the chaff, the strong from the weak. That does not mean to say," he continued, turning back to his work, "that nature has not propagated some genetic dead-ends in its quest for perfection. Take, for example, those creatures whose powers are of little practical use, or whose mutation is naught but a mere deformation. This is nature exposing its predisposition towards haphazard and arbitrary manifestations in service of evolution's onward march. But mutants such as Jean Grey, as Scott and Rachel Summers… they are examples of nature having reached the ultimate expression of perfection of its own volition. Such a shame they are now all lost to me."

Remy looked down at Rogue, the black crescent of her eyelashes sweeping down towards her pale cheeks, her lips slightly parted as though about to speak.

"And Rogue?" he murmured.

"Rogue?" Sinister's smile was both gleeful and malevolent. "Rogue, one might say, is the rarest of breeds. Nature at its most simple and elegant. Truly a marvel of creation. But she is …_imperfect_. In order to achieve her full potential, she will need a little help… from me."

His laughter was soft, hiding a wealth of macabre secrets. He put the control panel on standby and moved towards the door.

"Inform me if there are any changes, LeBeau," he ordered as door slid open at his approach. "Tomorrow we will wake her, and the grand experiment will begin."

And he left, leaving Remy staring down at Rogue's inert form lying, still and white, upon the bed.

-oOo-

Rogue opened her eyes to a crystalline light, to the sound of water lapping lightly upon a shallow shore.

She was back by the lake, lying under the cedar tree. Everything was calm, peaceful. Up on the hill, the mansion stood solid and comforting. She wondered why she'd never gone in there. Somehow, it had never seemed right to do so.

"Thank God," Remy's voice said above her. "You're awake."

She swivelled her head to her left, saw him sitting there beside her. There was relief in his expression.

"Remy?" she muttered, confused. "Where…? How…?"

She sat up slowly, realising after a moment that she was inside her own mind, and that he was merely a psyche. Why she had retreated here was another matter entirely. She couldn't remember much about what had happened in the outside world. She recalled going to attack Sinister, to absorb him and take him out of the game, and then – _blackness_.

"What happened?" she asked out loud.

"You tried to absorb Sinister," Remy explained calmly. "It didn't work. Seems like you got some kinda psychic backlash – you ended up in here."

"A defence mechanism?" she suggested, more to herself than to him.

"Mebbe," he shrugged.

She stood on wobbly feet, before realising that there were no physical boundaries, no nerves or muscles or _balancing_ in this place; he stood with her. He said nothing, waiting for her to acclimate, waiting for her to speak first.

"Why couldn't Ah absorb Sinister?" she finally questioned. Again, he shrugged.

"Beats me."

"Don't you have _any_ idea why?"

"_Non_." He seemed to think about it a moment, before continuing: "Truth is though, I don't think he's entirely human. Not like you or me. Maybe you can't absorb somet'ing dat ain't human."

"And that's all you can come up with?"

"It's a theory, _chere_," he replied, looking a little offended. "De best I could come up wit', leastways."

Rogue looked away, taking in the scenery surrounding her. Tranquillity reigned, all order and no chaos. Not a thing out of place. She wished the _real_ Remy was here – she felt certain that his 'theory' had improved over the past year or so.

"Remy," she spoke urgently, "Ah need your help."

"Anytime, _p'tit_," he answered softly. "You know dat."

"You betrayed me to Sinister," she explained, shivering at the memory. "Ah'm pretty sure he has me right now. Ah need t' know what he needs me for, Remy. Ah need to have an edge when Ah wake up."

Surprise crossed his face; then anger in quick succession. His mouth went hard.

"Dat's impossible, _chere_," he told her with self-assured certainty. "I wouldn't betray you, and especially not to Sinister."

"But you _did_, Remy," she returned as gently as she could. "Ah was there…"

"_Non_," he insisted heatedly. "I wouldn't. Not unless it was all part of some bigger plan, some bigger picture…" He shook his head, unconvinced. She didn't have the time or inclination to argue with him. Whatever Gambit's true motivation, she was in Sinister's hands right now. She needed to know what this was all about.

"Why would Sinister want _me_?" she asked him quickly, changing the subject. He looked at her incredulously.

"Why? Because you're an X-Man, Rogue."

"So why not any other X-Man? And why did he get _you_ to turn me over to him?"

A look crossed his face, one he couldn't hide from her.

"_Remy_…"

"Rogue…"

"Remy, please, you have to tell me what you know!"

He ran a hand through his hair, shifted his feet awkwardly. His reluctance was palpable.

"Way back when I first infiltrated de mansion," he began slowly, uncertainly, as if any word he spoke might shoot bullets in her, "_you_ were one of de X-Men Sinister specifically wanted."

She stared at him. And there was shame in his face, clear as daylight.

"Ah don't understand," she whispered. "He wanted _me_? For all that time?"

He nodded.

"Yes. Rachel Summers. And you. You were the ones he asked for." He looked away, at the lake, at the softly lapping water. "You don't know how it felt, _chere_, dat first moment I laid eyes on you. Thinkin' you were de most beautiful thing in de world, and _knowin'_ dat it was my job to give you to dat monster. If I coulda touched you, if I coulda tasted you and made myself believe you were just another woman, just another lay, maybe I coulda convinced myself dat I could give you up to him. But I couldn't. I couldn't get you out from under my skin. And de longer I stayed de harder it got to give you up."

His words were so gentle, so earnest, that she couldn't be angry at him.

"_Would_ you have?" she asked him quietly.

"_Non_. I don't know." He looked back at her gravely. "If dere was a way not to, I woulda found it…"

And she had to believe that – she had no other choice, not unless she wanted to give up everything she had fought for thus far. She had only the _hope_ that he would never have betrayed her, even if the present circumstances told her otherwise.

"Didn't he tell you why he wanted me?" she questioned him again.

"_Non_." He shook his head. "I never knew. He never explained why. I didn't question him. I never did."

And did the same hold true now, she wondered?

She turned away, knowing she would find no more answers here.

"If he's wanted me for this long then it has to be something important." She paused. There was only one thing that could possibly make her stand out from the rest of the X-Men at that mansion. "The Black Womb project," she muttered.

"_Quoi?_" he spoke behind her.

"It's… it's nothin'," she replied wearily. She had forgotten that there was so much he didn't know, so much he had missed. It made her… sad. Sad to realise that, comforting though his presence was to her, this Remy could never be a replacement for the one on the outside. He could never possess the history the two of them had shared in the long, torrid months since she had first absorbed him.

She took a step forward; that clouded door was already there in front of her, awaiting her command.

"Ah haveta go," she told him with real regret. He sensed it.

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

"It's okay. You couldn't've helped me."

"_Non_, not about dat." And his voice dropped a notch. "I'm sorry dat I wasn't honest wit' you back den, about why I was at de mansion in de first place. I wish I had been. Maybe den we would've worked dis through together."

"Or maybe Ah just woulda ended up hatin' your guts, sugah," she said, pressing a hand against that door. "Everythin' happens for a reason. Havin' twenty-twenty vision helps. And right now, if Ah'm gonna be able to get through this, twenty-twenty vision is exactly what Ah need."

-oOo-

For the first time, Irene's room was unlocked.

Rogue pushed open the door and let herself inside. It was exactly as it had been before. That pokey little room with dusty Victorian furnishings and papers scattered all over the floor. Irene sat on the edge of the antique leather couch, mahogany cane in hand, waiting, as she always seemed to.

"No more hide-and-seek?" Rogue greeted her sarcastically before she could get a word in. "Does this mean Ah'm gonna get some straight answers from you for once?"

Irene didn't even blink.

"Time is non-linear. Getting straight answers from it is well-nigh impossible."

Rogue snorted.

"Enough with riddles, Irenie. You've seen this, haven't you? You know exactly what happens. So far you've been sending me these crazy dreams about the future, tryin' to help me out. Well, now Ah actually _need_ some help. Ah need to know what Sinister wants me for."

"Knowing that won't help you now," Irene answered calmly.

"And what makes _you_ get to decide what helps me or not?" Rogue cried, her temper flaring. "Ah'm beginnin' to think you don't _really_ want to help me at all! That all these riddles and all these visions are just tricks to make me do things _wrong_. Maybe _you're_ the enemy, not Sinister!"

A frown touched the old lady's lips.

"You really believe that, Rogue?"

She hesitated, caught between exploding in righteous indignation and throwing herself on the floor in utter exhaustion.

"Ah don't know!" she burst out at last. "All Ah know is that Essex has me and Remy's in on it, and that the only thing that connects all the dots is the Black Womb project! Was Ah an unfinished experiment or somethin'?"

Irene's face was expressionless.

"Given the fact that the facility was destroyed half way through the project, it is quite probable that you are."

"And is that all Ah'm gonna get from you?!" Rogue railed at her. "When Ah'm at the mercy of that monster?!" She turned back to the door, almost shaking with rage. "Ah _knew_ this was a waste of time!"

She was just about to throw open the door and leave when Irene stopped her.

"I did not bring you here, Rogue, to _waste_ Time. Listen to my advice, dear daughter; and for all our sakes, please heed it. Whatever Essex does to you, _let_ him do it. Do not fight him. Promise me this."

She couldn't believe it.

"So you _want_ him to screw with me while Ah sit back and do nothin'?!" she shrieked, rounding on the shade of her foster mother. "_That's_ your advice?!"

"Yes." Irene's tone was still completely impassive. "You may take it or leave it, of course, but I beseech you to do the former. Listen to what Essex has to do, let him do what he must. Wait for your moment. It will come."

"And how will Ah _know_?!"

"You cannot fail to know," came the staunch reply. "Now go, Rogue. Go back to the light."

-oOo-

And she did.

It stung at first, making her eyes burn, making her groan and twist her face away from it.

"She's awake," a guttural female voice spoke somewhere above her. Whoever she spoke to said nothing but grunted in reply.

Rogue rocked gently in the ensuing silence. She realised that she was moving, strapped to a gurney, travelling down a brightly lit corridor; the air was sterile and frigid, and the only thing keeping the chill out was a thin paper gown. Colder still was the ring of steel about her neck. A power disruptor. Had she been able to access her powers anyway, she wasn't sure she would've been able to use them effectively – her head felt dense, sluggish. She wasn't sure how long she had been asleep, but she felt certain that most of it had been drug-induced, the after-effects of which she was feeling now.

The gurney jolted to a stop, and for the first time two faces came into view – Arclight and Harpoon. It'd been years since she'd last been in their presence, but their faces were ones she'd never forgotten.

"Damn," the woman spoke above her. "And here I was thinking she'd be out for the duration."

"This one is strong," Harpoon returned in his soft, grave accent. "She fights even when she sleeps."

"Well, she'd better not fight when we get her out of this," the woman retorted roughly. There was the sound of a door cranking open. Rogue lay still, listening, waiting. Irene's warning had not been lost on her.

_Whatever Essex does to you, let him do it. Do not fight him. Promise me this._

It wasn't what her nature told her to do, but considering the circumstances, she didn't have much of a choice.

The door had opened. A moment later, the gurney was moving again – Rogue felt the darkness of whatever room they were wheeling her into swallow her up; the air here was cool, frigid. Her flesh goosepimpled as the darkness grew and she finally came to a stop. There was a pause before she felt her captors loosen the straps at her ankles and wrists. When they were undone Arclight propelled her roughly forward into a sitting position.

"Come on, princess," she lilted mockingly. "Time to get up. The boss wants to see you."

They shoved her violently off the gurney, and she stumbled, only just managing to steady herself on numb, wobbly feet. Before she'd even got a chance to acclimatise to her surroundings, they had turned and left, wheeling the trolley along with them. The door slid shut behind them with a rumble and a clang.

Rogue was left shivering in almost pitch blackness, wreathed in a chill silence.

It was that silence that seemed to bring it out – all the turmoil, all the fear. She shuddered painfully, violently, unable to stop herself – when she wrapped her arms about her trembling body she still could not stop. She knew exactly what it was that Sinister did – the way he maimed, the way he killed. And Remy had delivered her up to that. _Remy_. Her lover; her betrayer. He had given her away without showing an inkling of regret. He had gone ahead and chosen Essex over her, and the only buffer between _that_ and her wounded heart were the threadbare assurances of Irene Adler.

Irene and her endless riddles.

Irene, who'd told her he _loved_ her.

Rogue's teeth chattered viciously.

It wasn't just the cold.

She was scared. Terrified. Just holding it down by the skin of her teeth.

And Irene's riddles were her only aid in doing so.

She stood a long moment, trying to get her bearings, trying to make out where she was. There was a faint source of light from somewhere she couldn't quite pinpoint, and she squinted, taking in her shadowy surroundings. The room was huge. Longer than it was wide, and colder than it had been out in the corridor. To her left there were walls closed over by heavy duty metal shutters; there was no telling what lay behind them. To her right the room led on into darkness; but she could make out all the carefully ordered clutter of a laboratory – the murky outlines of worktops covered with microtomes and tube racks, centrifuges and shake tables; row upon row of shelves holding bottled chemicals and lab mice; larger equipment pushed up against walls, machinery that she could put no name to. Some of the machines were on, their glowing switches and flickering dashboards the source of the ambient light.

She knew where she was.

Sinister's laboratory.

A thread of fear snaked its way up from the pit of her stomach to her throat; instinctively she fingered the collar at her neck, no chinks, no weaknesses – not that she had expected any. And not that it mattered much either. There wasn't much she could have done even with her powers. She was too weak, too confused. She had no idea of where she was, or where she could go to get out of this place. She didn't even know how many she was up against.

She shuddered, curling her numb toes against the cold metal floor, her ears flooded with the impassive hum of Essex's lab and the stertorous heaviness of her own breathing.

And then there was the unwieldy clunking of a titanium door opening from somewhere behind her. She swung round to face it, just as the strip lights above her buzzed noisily into life, one after another. Her senses screamed at the brightness; she covered her eyes with the crook of her elbow, feeling the back of her retinas throb and ache. She almost preferred the cover of darkness.

"Ah, Rogue," Sinister's voice filled the cavernous room over and over in a rasping echo. "Please forgive the crudeness with which you have been manhandled here. My faithful Marauders were not aware how _precious_ you are to me. Rest assured, they are feeling the consequences of their mistakes at this very moment."

He paused; and her vision had adjusted sufficiently to the light that she felt able to remove the shield from her eyes. Sinister was walking down the steps that led down from the upper gangway, a congratulatory look on his face. She was not surprised to see Remy close behind him.

"What do you want?" she asked, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice, not entirely succeeding. Fear was only a fraction of it. Most of it was weakness, tiredness. There wasn't much fight left in her.

"What do I want?" He had reached the bottom of the stairs, and he stopped there, appraising her with cold eyes. "Why, to add you to my collection, of course. Or, to be more precise, to add my collection to _you_."

He stepped forward, coming towards her, whilst Remy wandered off into the shadows somewhere. She tried to keep her eyes on him. To focus on the one thing that was at the centre of all of this. On whether he was acting for Sinister, or for her, or only for himself.

"You're making a mistake in looking to _him_," Sinister sneered, taking her chin between his cold fingers and jerking her face so that she was looking dead straight into his eyes. "_He_ has been bought and paid for. And so, my dear, have _you_."

He let go of her with a look of disdain, turning away, his movements agitated.

"Of course, it wasn't always like this," he mused sardonically, half to himself. "You were _both_ _mine_ by rights – until that bitch Amanda Mueller decided to destroy my – _our_ – life's work. My plans were scuppered – but only for a short while, it seems. Now, everything is as it should be."

"Ah don't understand…" she stammered, and he swung round at her, piqued by her words.

"Of course you don't!" he spat. "The machinations of fate took you away from me, but now they have brought us back together. You will fulfil your purpose yet."

The words silenced her. Fate… purpose… Even as he said them, did he _really_ know what they meant?

She glanced over at Remy, trying to communicate to him with her eyes. He was leaning against a computer console with his arms crossed, watching them impassively. Whether he intended to help her or not he wasn't ready to divulge just yet.

"And what _is_ my purpose?" she questioned in a low voice, looking back to Sinister.

He was silent for a long moment, seeming to consider what answer he should give her. After a moment he opened his mouth, said: "Show her."

At the console Remy uncrossed his arms, turned slightly, and pressed a button. At his touch the titanium-shuttered walls to her left began to grind open. And what she saw made her hold back a sickened gasp. Row upon row of glass tanks came into view, and in each tank – a person. Suspended in liquid, eyes closed. Dead or alive she couldn't tell – though from the fact that they were hooked up to _something_ made her think they were probably alive. That wasn't what immediately bothered her. What _did_ bother her was the fact that almost every single face was one she recognised. They were X-Men. Or, at the very least, mutants that had been affiliated with the X-Men at one point or another.

She pivoted on her heel, turning a 360 degree angle, her lips parted in an expression of horror and dismay.

Here, then, was the culmination of all those years of Sinister's work. A carbon copy of the Nevada test facility for the Black Womb project. The test subjects no longer children, toddlers, babies. These were all people she had once known, all people with their own lives.

"My collection," Essex announced with ostentatious pride.

He paused almost as if expecting applause. No one gave it. To Rogue, the world seemed to tilt slightly; she held herself tight in order to steady herself against a sudden faintness.

"How… How _long_…?" she whispered, seeing faces in the walls, so many faces… Sage, Empath, Multiple Man, Leech… Just a _kid_…

"How long?" Essex seemed amused by the question. "I don't believe I have ever really stopped. Amanda's actions merely culled the greater part of one crop. From that moment, I started to rebuild. Some I brought back into the fold, so to speak." He gestured to one figure floating blithely in one of the nearest pods – the sleeping form of Toad. "Others were _new_ acquisitions."

"_Acquisitions?_"

"Yes. Appropriated with the help of our friend here." He cast a sidelong glance in Remy's direction. "And he did his job admirably."

"So all those years… _that's_ what he was doing… Helping you rebuild your collection…"

"Yes." Essex nodded.

"But… Ain't Remy a part of your collection too?" she ventured.

A small smile touched Sinister's lips. It said everything and nothing.

"No. He is unique. As, in your own way, are _you_." He turned away from her, paced the floor in short, agitated steps, stroking the beard at his chin with long, white fingers. She watched him, drawing her arms about herself, trying not to look at the faces in the walls. Trying to ignore the pull of Remy's gaze upon her.

"You are aware, are you, of the extent of your powers?" Essex addressed her, still pacing the floor, lost in his train of thought. "How very rare and unique you are, as _homo superior_ goes?"

She hugged herself tighter, feeling the ominous dread that came with the realisation that, once again, what this all boiled down to was her powers.

"Ah know it's a curse," she answered softly, and he stopped short, spinning round on his heel to face her with a fanatical gleam in his eyes.

"Yes – of course you would think that. You, who have no _conception_ of the exceptional quality of those powers you possess." His expression was contemptuous. "Let me explain it to you plainly, so that you are able to grasp the _significance_ of your existence upon this earth."

He turned again, faced the wall of floating bodies, bathed in the soft, blue light that encased them. The pallor of his skin was illuminated into something almost glacial.

"When you were brought to me as an infant, you were one of a very few select subjects that showed Omega level potential – mutants whose powers are potentially limitless. You were separated from the chaff and your genetic makeup was studied closely." He paused, glowered. "Of course, it is only a rare mutant that develops its powers before the onset of puberty. The only marker of your mutation was the lock of white hair you possessed. It was far from clear to me exactly _what_ your powers would be, nor when or how they would manifest. But… I had an _idea_ of the power you were capable of; and I decided, on reflection, that the best way to unlock your potential was to set a timer in your genetic code, so to speak. Whenever your power finally manifested itself, it would manifest itself to its fullest. Your potential would be realised in a single glorious conflagration. You would be reborn as one of my very few chosen ones. The very essence of _homo_ _superior_."

He halted, a frown touching his features as he turned back to face her.

"But the plans I had for you and your brethren, unfortunately, did not come to pass. As you know, the Black Womb project and the facility that housed it were destroyed. You were stolen by Irene Adler and that harpy Raven Darkhӧlme." He sneered with blatant and unadulterated disgust. "They took you back to a 'normal' life and thus ruined any chance of nurturing you for the one great achievement you had been destined for. When your powers finally _did_ manifest, naturally you were not ready for them. They overwhelmed you, and you could not control them. The timer I had coded into your genes was effective." His smile was cold, disdainful. "_You_, however, were not."

And there it was.

Another piece falling into place.

She could hardly believe it.

All the suffering, all the turmoil of those early years… the trauma of killing Cody Robbins with a kiss, with all the gentleness and love inside her… All the running, all the death and the hate and the doubt… It had never been her fault. She had never been the way she was _meant_ to be. A time bomb had been planted inside her, ticking away silently for years, deep inside her, waiting to go off. She dug her nails into the skin of her arms, her knuckles white with the pressure. Her blood was pounding in her head again, making her dizzy, making her sick…

"_You_…" she voiced hoarsely, hardly knowing she spoke. "_You_ made me kill Cody…"

"Yes," he affirmed with a barely concealed strain of triumph. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You, Rogue, are one of evolution's expressions of perfection. A being capable of performing any task required of it merely through a touch. A receptacle of extraordinary breadth and scope, able to hold within you the entire sum of humanity if you so wished! You are both nature's vessel and its executioner in equal parts. Oh, your powers are indeed formidable! More's the pity that you were unable to control them."

She dropped her hands, numb, nauseous, looked down into her palms with blank, horrified eyes, saying: "All those years… All that time thinkin' there was somethin' _wrong_ with me… It was _you_. _You_ made me go wrong…"

"Wrong?!" His countenance was one of incredulity. "It was I who made you _right!_ And imagine my surprise when, years after I had given you up as lost, you turned up first with the Brotherhood, and then with the X-Men! Broken goods, unable to control your powers, unable even to _recognise_ the potential in you. You were a disappointment – but I did not entirely give up hope on you. As it happened, my interest in the X-Men was piqued long before by the birth of the child of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Through careful machinations, I managed to enlist the help of a certain young mutant in infiltrating the X-Men with the sole purpose of retrieving both you and Miss Summers, thus returning you to my care."

"_Remy_," she spoke breathlessly. She'd already known it, but it didn't stop the ache inside her, didn't stop her from casting her mind back years to the time they had both shared at the X-Men; time they had spent together, talking, laughing, flirting, _falling in love_… How much of it had been lies? How much of it had been a masquerade when he had _known_ that, somewhere down the line, he would have had to hand her over to Essex? She couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe he had done it willingly.

"You_ blackmailed_ him," she stated in an accusatory tone; but he merely laughed.

"Perhaps. Maybe a little. It didn't take much though. A warm bed, a roof over his head, all the money he could possibly want… Winning him over wasn't very hard." His smile faded, quickly turned to something cold and cruel. "As it turned out, however, his mission was not to be completed. The military attacked the mansion and most of its inhabitants were killed. I believed you dead. Until very recently, as it happens."

He paused once more, his gaze becoming more reflective.

"It seems both Destiny and Mystique managed to hide your continued existence from me – though they served their purpose in teaching you control of your powers, I will give them _that_ due. And as for LeBeau… Once he was aware that you lived, he too unwittingly aided them in keeping you hidden. His selfish lust for you made certain of that. Even after you came to my attention after that debacle down at the Hound Pens, he sought to keep you from me. However, as luck would have it, I still had something to offer him in return for giving you up. And now… you find yourself here. In the heart of my domain. Where you belong, and where you were always intended to remain."

She was shaking. Shaking all the way through his speech, as all the years of deception and deceit were laid bare for her to see. As Irene's insistence that _she had a purpose_ suddenly took on a new shade, a new significance. There had never been a grand story for her. Nor had there ever been a meaning to her suffering, to all her travails. Remy was right, _had_ been right all along. There was no purpose to _any_ of this. She was a machine, an automaton wired to become Sinister's plaything. Only the machinations of Destiny herself had set her free from that fate. She had _always_ been free, but – ironically – had never known it.

"You may have bought Remy," she told him, her voice trembling with myriad emotions – fear, anger, the cold; "but you can't buy me, Essex. There's nothin' in the world you can blackmail me with. Or are you going to add me to your 'collection'? 'Cos you might as well save your breath and just do it now. Ah ain't got a thing left to live for now, and Ah ain't interested in your stories."

A smile curled his lip, full of mingled scorn and admiration for her impudence.

"Ah, Rogue, so eloquent you are," he mocked her softly. "But I have no need to blackmail you; nor am I interested in adding you to the collection you see here." He looked over at Remy, who was still standing silently by the computer console. "Bring him down," he ordered peremptorily. Remy turned and ran his finger across a touch panel. The next moment a section of the wall began to move downward like a panel in a slot machine, the grinding of cogs and gears nearly drowning out the sound of Sinister's voice as he continued to speak.

"I told you, did I not Rogue, that you were always meant to serve a special purpose? Well now at last we come to the moment when you shall begin to fulfil that purpose for me."

He turned as a tank bearing the small, stunted form of Leech came level with the ground; the machinery laboured and screeched as the glass and titanium case was levered slowly into a horizontal position. The pod groaned along thin metal runners, moved slowly towards Rogue, and came to a stop at her feet. She looked down unwillingly through the glass. There he was. Not much more than a boy; she didn't even know his name. When she'd asked him, the first time she'd met him down in the sewers with the rest of the Morlocks, he had said, "Just call me Leech." And when she asked him why, he'd replied, "'Cos it's what I do." And she'd said, "You can call me Rogue. 'Cos it's what Ah am."

And now what did it all mean?

Sinister had opened up a panel on the side of the tank, had pressed a few buttons. The liquid in the tank was draining, and had been flushed out through some metal tubing she guessed was under the floors from the sounds she could hear gushing and gurgling beneath her. He pressed another button; the glass case slid open slowly. There was the pungent odour of unfamiliar chemicals; warm steam rose into the air like dry ice. The young boy lay wet and still in his cradle, as fresh and alive as if he had never aged a day since she had last seen him. Even a bruise, on his left cheek, had been preserved by whatever solution Essex had kept him in. She was caught between the instinct to touch him, to shake him into wakefulness, and the urge to leave him there as he was, endlessly sleeping, oblivious to this cage that now housed him.

"He's just a kid…" she murmured, her heart going out to him, going out to him with all the small, short, meaningless memories they had shared – there weren't many.

"Indeed," Essex agreed dispassionately. "A most singular subject. His powers manifested before puberty, as did his physical deformations. A mutant, through and through. An insignificant one, however." He turned to her. "You, on the other hand, are anything but. Reach out, touch him, and his powers become yours. Instantly. And always accessible. _ Forever_."

And suddenly, she saw it. The fit. What it all meant. In that one moment, her place within Destiny's web became clear. She clung, like a widow spider, in the middle, linked inexorably to every other player in this game, ready to pounce, to feed, to ingest.

And he saw that she saw it when he looked into her eyes.

"Ah, _now_ you begin to realise it, Rogue," he hissed insidiously. "And the wonder is that you never realised it before this moment. The potential you have, the _limitless_ potential, to _be every mutant that lives_. When I first realised what you had become, when I first saw you with the Brotherhood and then with the X-Men, I knew that you were not merely to be added to my collection. You were to _be_ my collection. In all its glorious entirety."

And she took a step back, her head spinning, her breath coming fast as she rasped: "_No_…"

"_Yes_," he spat exultantly, grasping her wrist in a claw-like hand, drawing her back towards him. "Why deny what is so evident? Why deny the greatness you could achieve with the combined power of the most formidable beings on this planet? There is _nothing_ that could stand in your way, not even the Hounds, not even the Sentinels. _That_ is the meaning of _homo superior_, Rogue. And _you are it_. One of my crowning achievements. You will stand at the head of my army, you will be at the very apex of your kind."

And her head was swimming, the psyches beneath it singing, screaming, screeching inside her, a cacophony so loud that it almost drowned out her own thoughts, the insistence that this _was not possible_…

"Ah won't do it," she gasped; but his grip was vice-like on hers and he jerked her forward, towards Leech lying cold and damp in the pod before her, and she heard him say grimly:

"You don't have a choice."

And she saw suddenly that there was a remote control in his hand; he pressed a button and something in the collar round her neck buzzed into life; she felt it thrumming, through her skin, her veins, her pores and her nerves, coursing through every fibre in her body, making the hair on her stand on end, and she realised, she _knew_… he was switching it on. The power in her. Panic rose in her, pure and unadulterated terror, and the psyches were all awakening, one by one, shrieking, clamouring to be heard, screaming _don't let this happen, don't let this happen…!_

She tried to pull away, but he jerked her forward again, and through the maelstrom inside her head she saw her hand shaking, hovering over the small form lying prostrate before her.

"_No no no, don't make me do it, please don't make me do it…!_" she wailed and:

"You will!" she heard him say, "You _must_!"

And he yanked her hand forward, downward, against the cheek of the sleeping boy, and _connection_, no pulling, no need, just everything, pouring into her in a great, heaving flood; pure blackness descending over her, a consciousness with no thoughts, no feelings, no sensation, just quietness, stillness, darkness, a vast expanse, _years_ of it, eating her up, sucking her in and…

She screamed.

And then she was on the other side. Slimy blackness gave way to light. She tumbled through into it, free falling, and – _whoosh!_ – the memories began, crashing up and over her, like catapulting into a pool feet first, and drowning in it, his life, every single minute of it, whirlpooling round her in a fast-moving spiral, tunnelling downward, downward, downward, smaller and smaller and thinner and thinner, to a pinprick in the very bottom she didn't think she could fit through…

"_Stop, stop, Ah'll kill him!"_ she thought or she screamed out loud – she wasn't sure; and just as she was about to get lost in the blackness forever – _snap!_ – the connection broke with all the brutal physicality of whiplash, her hand free at long last.

Rogue dropped to the floor like a stone, and there was nothing except a blurry, spinning whiteness and the sound of her own ragged breaths. And then… hands on her. Familiar. Steadying her, holding her up.

"_Remy_," she thought or she said, before the pressure of those hands became paper thin, the sounds receded far, far away, and the lights went out.

-oOo-


	9. Sage

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** Yet another week has gone past and here we are again... I want to say thank you for reading and to all my reviewers... Please keep sending me your thoughts. I do so love reading them and hearing more about what you think. :D

**rmm8127: **This good enough for you? ;) **FF2Addict: **Fortunately Rogue escaped Sinister's control - as luck would have it (or as Destiny and Amanda Mueller would have it) she was taken out of the life Essex had planned for her. Now all Essex wants to do is pick her up again where he left off nearly 30 years ago, but Rogue being Rogue, she isn't going to take that lightly... ;) **RRL24**: Hopefully in this chapter you'll find out a little bit more about whether Remy is cool with this or not. **MeVoila: **Yes, Destiny and Gambit are certainly running a risk in playing this game if they want Rogue to come out of this unscathed... :/

Many thanks also to **StormBreeze** and **Warrior-princess1980 **for the reviews and, once again, to **jpraner** for being my beta-reader... x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART TWO : SINISTER_  
**

**(9) - Sage -**

_Everything is dank and dark and stinks._

_ It doesn't smell like it did in the internment camp. In the camp there was the odour of decaying flesh, mould, urine and excrement. Here it smells of hospitals. Of medicine and chemicals. She can't place it. She doesn't understand what it means. It almost makes it worse than the horrible smells she's encountered before._

_ She hears boot steps and she peers through the bars. It's the man. She sees him coming. No swagger, no sinuous strength this time. He is quiet, measured. Hesitant, even._

_ He stops right in front of her cell and gets down on his haunches. Peers through the bars at her. She doesn't flinch. She's used to them coming and staring at her. Used to them poking and prodding and prying._

_ That's not what he's here to do. She sees he has a tray in his hands. Bread and water. Standard fare, wherever you happen to be incarcerated. He slips open a panel in the door, slides it in. The panel slams shut again._

_ But the man doesn't go. He stays. His red eyes bore into her, staring with a stark intensity. His expression is otherwise unreadable._

_ She stares back. Mirroring his expression. No fear. She's learned this since she was four. Show fear and it provokes them. Fear invites punches and kicks and endless hurt and pain. She's become an expert at deflection._

_ They stare at each other a long time, neither giving way._

_ Then the man's eyes flicker._

_ "I'm sorry," he says._

_ She hasn't expected that. She blinks._

_ "If it's any consolation, you won't feel a t'ing," he continues. "It'll be peaceful. You'll sleep. You'll never feel pain again."_

_ She doesn't understand what he means. She expects death – _has_ been expecting it for years now. The sooner it comes the better. She stares up at him mutely, wishing he would _go_._

_ His eyes shift. Those dark eyes, once unwavering, now… sad. He looks aside. He sighs, and at last he stands._

_ "I'm sorry," he says again, and this time she can't see his face. He stands and waits a moment, as if wanting her to speak. She still won't give him the satisfaction. After a while he takes the hint. He turns and walks away, and soon his boot steps are gone._

-oOo-

Rogue surfaced from Leech's memory slowly.

What she saw first was the soft glow that illuminated the bed that she lay upon; and beyond, a room swathed in semi-darkness.

Her head was woolly, as though stuffed with cotton. Usually, when she'd absorbed someone that deeply and for that length of time, she would wake up with a monster of a migraine and be laid up for the better part of the day, if not more. Now she felt strangely light-headed. Somewhere at the back of her mind, the logical part of her was telling her that she had been drugged. The other half was letting her ride out the sensation and making the most of the fact that she _wasn't _hurting.

She swivelled her head slightly to the right.

Remy was there, leaning over a computer console with his back to her. The line of his shoulders was taut, tense. She considered him almost casually, without the fear or dread that she should have felt, a gift blissfully bestowed by the haze of the anaesthesia. He didn't want to be doing this. She was certain of that. But if he didn't want this then Sinister must have had something on him, something big… bigger than any love they might have shared.

But what?

What could possibly be greater than this thing she had cherished for so long and so dearly?

Had she been wrong about them…about _him_…this whole time? For all these years?

The thought pained her despite the numbness of the drugs and she opened her mouth, her lips dry and chapped, his name tumbling out involuntarily, gracelessly.

"Remy…"

Her voice was thin and wispy even to her own ears and seemed to come from somewhere else entirely. At the sound of it he started and turned to face her. He seemed surprised that she was awake.

"You were in his mem'ries…" she murmured again, as he walked up to stand beside her. His eyes were focused upward, at what she thought must be a monitor above her head. After a moment he looked down on her, his expression inscrutable.

"You were kind to him…" she continued, and he reached out, touched her forehead, said, "Shhh…"

She closed her eyes, focused on his fingers, there, on her skin; and somehow despite all the cobwebs and the sawdust invading her brain she remembered the truth; she lifted a hand and found his forearm, touched it weakly.

"He's always wanted me… You always knew… You woulda protected me from him… Ah know that…"

His silence was penetrating; his handprint was warm as sunlight on her forehead. He said nothing. Presently his hand disappeared and she opened her eyes again. Now he was holding a syringe, full of clear liquid.

_No, no, no, not good…_

"Remy…" she began again, trying to pinpoint it, trying desperately to cut through the fog in her head, but —

"Shhh," he repeated softly. "You need to rest. Essex will be needin' you again soon. Dis'll help you sleep."

She felt the pinprick in her arm. The cold liquid coursing through her vein. Almost immediately it began to take effect. He pulled out the needle, laid it aside. Before he could turn away again she reached out, she touched his hand.

"Remy… You woulda protected me… Always…"

His hand was like stone; her own limbs were becoming leaden once more, dead-weights. Her hand dropped from his and she fought it, briefly, before it became too delicious to resist. In another moment the cavernous darkness had caught her, and she was lost once more in a dreamless slumber.

-oOo-

When she woke up next, it was Remy that was transporting her back to room that housed Sinister's collection.

She didn't see him at first. But she sensed him, his presence, his warmth. His scent undercut the drug-induced haze in her brain, subtle as his movements, dark as his eyes.

It was only a couple of seconds before his face came into view above her. His gaze was level, impassive, communicating nothing. But he _was_ communicating to her, somehow. He didn't need to touch her, didn't need to look at her. Just his nearness was enough. It told her that he felt her pain. It told her that he'd never wanted this.

He disappeared again, and once more she heard that same door creaking open, felt that frigid air touch her skin, felt the darkness crawl over her. This time Remy flipped the lights on. He unstrapped her from the gurney, helped her up with a gentle touch. She sat there on the trolley, shivering. The heat of his hand on her back made it worse.

"Ah'm cold," she murmured, running her hands up her arms.

"Dis won't take long," he replied. She looked around her. The tanks had already been revealed. This time she studied the contents more closely. She recognised a couple more faces. There were still a few more she could put no name to.

"He wants me to absorb them all?" she whispered. There were hundreds here. She didn't know if her mind would be able to take even a fraction of them.

"_Oui_," he returned. She swallowed. Her nails were sharp in the skin of her bare arms. It unnerved her to know that she hadn't had time to attend to Leech's psyche, hadn't had the chance to put him away in his own little room and keep him quiet. Yet that was exactly what he was. Quiet. As if he wasn't there at all. And it wasn't just the drugs giving the effect. She knew that for certain.

"Ah…Ah don't think Ah can absorb them all," she told him, her voice trembling from the cold, from the fear. "Ah don't think my psyche can handle it…" She turned to him, fixed her eyes on his imploringly. "Yah haveta tell him, Remy," she begged desperately. "You _know_ what it's like for me. The dreams… the blackouts… the random power manifestations… Ah can't do it. It'll break mah mind. It could _kill_ me…"

His expression was still inscrutable; but there was a flicker of warmth in his eyes that she clung to.

"Damn you, Remy!" she wailed, fighting back a sudden drug-induced wave of nausea. "You've gotta help me! What if Ah drain them dry? What if he makes me carry on absorbin' them after they're _gone_? It'll kill me! Ah can't do it, Remy! Ah – Ah _can't_!"

He gazed at her for a long painful moment, his Adam's apple rising and falling. Then he put a hand on her shoulder blade and said, almost impassively: "Essex will make sure you can. Don't worry."

The words only served to sharpen the helplessness of her anxiety. She fought back the urge to vomit with an effort, gagging not just with the nausea but with fear. All those years playing Mystique's whore, all those times she'd sacrificed her body to _the cause_… none of them had hurt like this.

_None_.

She stared at her hands, her eyes burning with tears of rage and impotence that she refused to let fall, not when she was beside this man she had trusted more than anyone or anything, yet who had delivered her up to _this_.

When the tide of nausea had passed she looked up at him with an expression fuelled by such hatred and betrayal that he was forced to look away. Several moments passed before he could raise his eyes again, and when he did he indicated that she get down from the gurney with a short gesture of the hand – she did so, but only reluctantly.

It was only then, as he wheeled the trolley away into a corner and she was left to look about her, that she noticed Essex standing a little way off, examining one of the prizes in his collection. Rogue recognised the woman in the tank as Sage. She had only met her once. Sage had been one of Xavier's undercover operatives, always on a mission, always playing someone else. She'd only come to the mansion once during Rogue's tenure as an X-Men, and even then Rogue had learned very little about her. She supposed that, from today, she'd get to learn everything she'd missed.

Sinister seemed to realise her presence. He looked back over his shoulder at her, as though unwilling to be drawn away from a particularly fascinating exhibit in a museum.

"Ah, Rogue. Here at last." He grinned mockingly at her. "I trust Gambit treated you with more respect than Arclight and Harpoon did yesterday?"

She made no reply and he snickered.

"Not as eloquent today, are we? Just as well, perhaps. There is much to do and little time." He turned back to the dark-haired woman floating in the tank above him. "Come here," he ordered her peremptorily.

She made no effort to move, until she felt Remy's hand on the small of her back, impelling her forward with a gentle pressure. Remembering Irene's warning that she must _let this happen_, she allowed herself to be guided by him to stand beside Essex. If she had no choice in this, she would do as she was told, but only if _he_ asked it of her, not Essex.

As it was, Essex already seemed to have forgotten her. His eyes were still on the form of the woman floating unconscious in the tank, his face illuminated a sickly shade of green from the liquid that enclosed her and all the other occupants of that room. Remy took a step back from them. He was behind her – she could feel him. Just an arm's length away.

"I'd like to show you one of the best in my collection," Sinister spoke, still not looking down at her. "A singular specimen, whose like, I do not think, has been matched."

She looked up at the woman. Even in the harshly coloured light she could see the evidence of her last fight on her body. Angry bruises, welts and cuts seemed to cover every inch of her. The liquid chemical had preserved them all.

"Sage," she whispered.

"Yes," Essex nodded approvingly. "The human computer. And a mutant who could jumpstart the latent abilities in other mutants. I had watched her closely since birth. Her mutations fascinated me. She was to have been another of my chosen few. Her ability to psionically adjust, modify and restructure the mutant genome would have been a true asset to my cause. Unfortunately, that meddlesome Charles Xavier won her over. And she was not an easy woman to locate, nor to catch."

"She ain't in such good shape," Rogue noted in a low voice.

"No. She fought valiantly, when she was brought in. Luckily, LeBeau was better."

At last he turned away from Sage and round to her.

"You, on the other hand, have not fought, Rogue. Not once since you have entered this place. And that intrigues me."

"Even if Ah was able to get the better of you two without access to my powers or even with mah bare hands, Ah wouldn't even know how to escape from this place without your Marauders comin' and stickin' somethin' sharp in mah back. Like they tried to do to Emma."

Her words held a defiance that somehow overtook her fear. Sinister laughed.

"Yes. Quite. I see there is more logic in you than I first thought. It is, of course, quite pointless for you to resist. Even your formidable powers have been accounted for." He gestured to the disruptor around her neck. "Believe me when I say that I have no intention of harming you. You are far too precious an asset. But there are ways of making you comply if you prove to be difficult." His eyes shifted over her shoulder towards Remy. "Bring her down," he ordered.

Wordlessly Remy moved to the computer console. A few seconds later, Sage's tank was being cranked down towards the floor.

"Do you begin to see, Rogue, what you were _born_ to be?" Essex asked her above the mechanical drone of cogs and gears grinding. "That all this is merely part of your destiny, your purpose in life?"

It would hardly have meant anything to her had he not mentioned the word 'destiny'. A coincidence, perhaps – but it seemed to ring out to her as clearly as a clarion call. She could not believe it. That it had been Irene's intent all along that she become _this_. And suddenly she doubted. She doubted that she was doing the right thing in following Irene's advice, in _not_ fighting; even though logic also told her she had no other choice.

"You were born to be a warrior," Essex was continuing as Sage's coffin slowly advanced. "You were born to be one of the most powerful beings on this planet. And I… I am merely _helping_ you achieve that potential."

The tank ground to a halt. Remy was close again, hovering somewhere to her right and a little way behind. Despite the fact that he wasn't even on her side anymore, she drew strength from his presence. She steeled herself as Sinister opened up the glass facing of the tank, as the steam billowed up and the chemical scent poured out. Again, there was Remy's hand on her back, making her step forward to stand beside Sinister at the opening of the tank. Sage lay there, battered and bruised and ripe for the taking. Rogue looked down on her but barely saw her. She had closed her mind tight shut. When she felt Essex flip the reverse switch on her disruptor, when she felt her power flare under the pores of her skin, making her hair stand on end, she froze. She couldn't do it.

"_Make her_," she heard Sinister hiss beside her, and Remy was suddenly there, stepping in right behind her so that the warmth of his body ran all the way down her back; he reached out with a gloved hand and took her wrist, no roughness, no violence in his grasp. He said nothing. His fingers moved downward from her wrist, clasped her palm, his thumb brushing against her knuckles. No coercion, only insinuation. Coaxing her to do this terrible thing she didn't want to do. Somehow saying _it'll be all right_ when she knew it wouldn't.

She leaned back into him, twisted her head towards his shoulder, an animal sound of fear sounding in her throat as she hoped, _prayed_, that he wouldn't do this to her… and there was a pause, a split second where he almost seemed to hesitate, to hear the depth of her pain.

It was a split second that ended all too soon. She could do nothing but let him guide her hand downward; and as she knew contact was inevitable that steeliness in her increased; she held herself so tight she thought she would shatter.

And then there it was – just her fingers, splayed out upon damp flesh, and this time there was no terror, no tidal wave. She drank it in, bit by bit, gulp by gulp, measured surges coming and going over her in waves… She couldn't let this take over her, she couldn't.

Remy's grip tightened on hers, holding her hand on Sage's skin, and suddenly she realised it didn't seem to be stopping, that Sage's psyche just kept on _coming_ at her, and even though she was forcing herself to take this slow, she was filling up, filling up to the brim, and now she was treading water just about keeping her chin above the surface…

And then she was under, underneath the cold, dark memories swirling like ink around her, dragging her under. But still she steeled herself, making herself small and hard against the irresistible current, as insignificant as a stone being tossed around in a riverbed. Sage's memories were drowning her, buffeting her this way and that, impelling her downwards towards the _end_ where she knew she could go no further, where there would be _nothing left_.

She finally took in a desperate gasp, unable to speak, unable to see, unable to shout out and call that she was _done_, that if she held on any longer she would be lost. And he heard her. He heard her as if she had spoken to him.

Remy drew back her hand, even as she stood on the threshold of that nothingness.

But his hand did not leave hers as her eyes rolled and she sank into his arms, unconscious.

-oOo-

_She's gotten sloppy._

_ Take her back a few years and she'd have pummelled this pretender into the ground._

_ But being imprisoned without access to your powers for all this time and well, this is what happens. You get sloppy._

_ The tip of his boot clips her on the cheek._

_ Time was, it would've just sailed past. And though she's dodging like a prize fighter, though she's giving him a run for his money, he's getting too many hits in. He's wearing her down, slowly but surely._

_ There's one thing she knows. He doesn't want her dead. Whatever he wants her for, he needs her alive._

_ He whips out his quarterstaff, extends it, charges it. She processes, she analyses. She knows it's going to hit her before it does. But she has nothing. She's completely drained. She hurts too much._

_ The charged staff slams into her solar plexus. When she hits the ground, she can barely breathe. The oxygen sears in her throat._

_ "Shouldn'ta put up a fight, chere," he gloats down at her, panting hard with the exertion of their fight. The tip of the staff, now uncharged, presses against her throat, holding her down, making it doubly hard for her to breathe. "You ain't even got a ghost of a chance wit'out your powers."_

_ He's good. She'd heard about him before, way back, from Xavier. Xavier had trusted him. Despite all his past, all his secrets, Xavier had seen the good in him. And look how that had turned out._

_ "Traitor," she rasps. She spits at him; it lands on his thigh. His expression changes. There is quiet anger on his features, calm, controlled rage. A fire that burns with an icy flame. He lifts the staff, ready to strike, and she doesn't have a chance. It slams into the side of her skull and she's out._

-oOo-

She awoke to murmuring above her; to the sound of his voice. It floated in and out of range for a moment, and this time she kept her eyes shut in an attempt not to give herself away.

"We need a better way to do dis," he was saying. "De next time we could lose her completely if we don't stop de absorption in time."

He was right above her; she could almost feel his breath on her skin; his voice was louder than the monitors tracking out her heartbeat.

"And what do you propose we do?" Sinister's voice returned, mild and inoffensive as the cobra about to strike. He was close too; but not as close as Remy was.

"We need some way of stoppin' de absorption before she passes out," Remy replied, and his voice was calm and confident, unfazed by Essex's gently ominous question. "If she don't stop, she'll drain de subject dry. She'll kill them. God knows what it'll do t' her."

"Hm." Essex's tone was slightly troubled. "Perhaps you could convince her it would be in her best interests to cooperate, to do the absorption of her own volition, to control the process instead of making us force her. I do so loathe unwilling subjects. It makes one's work that much harder."

"I could try," Remy rejoined doubtfully, "but I don't t'ink it'd take."

"Why not? She still trusts you."

"Somehow, I don't t'ink dat stands anymore," he murmured. There was a pause; she felt Remy's gaze sweep over her face a moment, warm and intent, before slipping away once more.

"I want de surgery," he said suddenly, in a tone that was self-assured, authoritative even. This time the silence was tense; a battle of wills being fought out above her without a single word spoken. It seemed an age before she next heard Essex's reply.

"There are other things of more importance right now," he spoke in a taut voice, as if anger dripped like venom from its edges. Remy was not dissuaded.

"To you, maybe. Not to me. I want what's mine. Or haven't I proven myself enough these past few months?"

Sinister laughed at that. A low, menacing snicker.

"Proof of your worth is one thing. Proof of your loyalty is quite another." There was a pause and Essex seemed to turn, walk off some little way into the distance. "Still," he continued thoughtfully, "you _have_ brought Rogue to me. And that, after all, _was_ a part of the deal. It would be remiss of me not to fulfil my side of the bargain." He turned, his tone suddenly decided. "We will talk on this later, LeBeau. You shall have your due."

There was a mechanical hiss, the sound of the drug being injected directly once more into her vein. The coldness ran up her arm and was lost in a delicious blurry haze. There was no more conversation, and Rogue gave herself into the numbing warmth.

-oOo-


	10. Decision

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** I would just like to say thanks to my readers, and a special thanks to all those who take the time and effort to review on my work. Without your words of encouragement and kindness this would just be another Romy story floating around in the ether. Your words mean more to me than I can say. Thank you.

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART TWO : SINISTER_  
**

**(10) - Decision -**

Logan was pissed. More than pissed.

He was teetering on the edge of a berserker rage and the only thing keeping him from giving into it was the fact that Jubilee was still standing next to him alive and in one piece. Emma was near death, Synch was severely wounded, and Psylocke was in a coma. Rogue was missing, and had been for the better part of a day now.

"It was a set up," he growled between his teeth. "It was a fuckin' set up!"

"Of course it was!" Raven Darkhölme stormed. "I just can't believe you fucking fell for it!"

He bit back another expletive. She was pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, her face drained of all colour, her long, thin fingers working agitatedly at her sides. Irene, on the other hand, sat motionless in a chair, staring at the floor with blind eyes. If Logan had had a choice, he would have gone to hell in a fast car rather than let either of them on his turf. But times like these made for strange bedfellows. Considering the circumstances, old enmities were the last thing on his mind. And with the state his crew was in, he figured he might even be needing Raven's help in all this. Even if, in actual fact, the only thing he'd gained out of this so far was Forge's strictly technical expertise and the Brotherhood's tentative knowledge as to where Sinister's base actually was.

"You mean we nearly lost Emma just because those douchebags wanted Rogue?" Jubilee exclaimed incredulously, and Raven whipped round on her.

"Those were Sinister's _Marauders_! Do you know what the fuck that _means_?!"

"Yeah," Logan interrupted gruffly, deflecting Raven's wrath from the girl. "It means Sinister wants her for something; and that means Rogue's still alive. For now."

"For now," Raven repeated on an acid laugh. "_For now_ isn't damn good enough! If she's in the hands of that twisted fuck, God knows what he could do to her without ever having to lay a finger on her!"

Logan barely heard her tirade. Something else had occurred to him. It was a train of thought he didn't like at all.

"Gambit," he spoke on an impulse. The name stopped Raven in her tracks. She went very still and glared at him.

"_What did you say_?"

"Gambit," he echoed, more loudly this time. "Don't you see the fit? Rogue. Sinister and his Marauders. Gambit's gotta be in there somewhere."

Raven stared at him through viper-like eyes. The next moment she'd slammed her fist into a wall, leaving a sizeable dent in the plaster work.

"_I'll kill him!_" she barked in an explosion of rage and hate. "And he _swore_ he would protect her!"

"And you believed him?" Logan asked disbelievingly.

"Not _me_." She gestured to the old woman sitting silently in her corner. "Irene." She turned to her, railed at her with mingled fury and despair: "You told me to let him go! You said it would be for the _best_!"

Irene said nothing, but her wrinkled hands were clasped, vice-like, in her lap, tight as a drawstring. Logan saw it. Whatever façade of equanimity she displayed now, inside she was a seething mass of controlled fear and doubt.

"Oh _shit_," Jubilee suddenly muttered to herself. He looked at her sideways.

"What?"

"Rogue. She got a text the other night," the younger woman explained in a rush, her face flushed. "It was from Gambit. I thought it was like, y'know, somethin' _private_. She left soon after."

For Logan it was pretty much proof enough that the Cajun was involved.

"Shit," he groaned, knowing he should've gutted the snake the moment he'd laid eyes on him again that time back in Chicago, Rogue in tow.

Mystique was pacing again, hardly listening to anything that was being said around her. The way she was walking up and down like a trammelled beast was seriously starting to tick him off.

"This is bad," she was muttering to herself. "Really bad. Essex cannot have her. Not at any cost." She stopped again, spinning round to face Irene, who was still staring impassively at the ground. "What do you see, Irene?" she questioned with an undisguised strain of desperation. "What do you _see_?"

"What I've always seen," Irene spoke for the first time, her voice barely audible. "Nothing has changed."

"How can that _be_?!" Mystique raved. "How is that _possible_?! We've taken every precaution against this! _Every_ precaution! For _years_! And yet you let her fall into the hands of that thief, a man we both _knew_ was in the employ of Sinister!"

"I trusted him," Irene spoke, and Logan saw that despite the calm confidence of her words, she was still wringing her hands – that she had not stopped. "I still do."

"Trust him?" Again, Logan was incredulous. "Why?"

Raven didn't give her time to reply; she answered for her.

"She believed he was playing Sinister. Playing him to keep Rogue protected. But if that was the case," and she glanced daggers in Irene's direction, "why would he give her up to him? _Why_?"

"Perhaps Fate is not to be denied," Irene said quietly, and Raven stared at her as if she'd been slapped in the face. Her eyes went wide.

"_What have you seen_?" she repeated, and this time her voice shook with emotion. Irene made no reply, but turned slightly to face them, opening a small bag at her side, pulling out a thick, leather-bound book. Mystique's eyes grew even wider; there was a terrible kind of dread in them, the look of a woman going to her own execution.

Irene saw none of this. She flicked through the pages as she had done so many times before; at last she reached a certain page – she spread it open with both hands, ran her palms over the paper as though reading its texture, as though it spoke to her in a way words could not. Logan saw that as she did so her face grew pale and drawn – there was an expression on her features that was almost like agony.

And Raven was trembling, shaking visibly as Irene lifted the book and turned it to show them.

There was a picture of Rogue, drawn in pencil, painted in watercolour; a crude image, Logan thought, yet not without a certain amateur skill. It might almost have been charming, had there not been a knife blade in her breast. And on the other end of that knife was the unmistakeable figure of Sinister.

An animal sound came from Raven's mouth, something between a shriek and a gasp. Logan sucked in a breath. Jubilee looked confused, scared.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Raven screamed when she had finally found her tongue. "_Why didn't you tell me?!_"

Irene did not answer. She snapped the book shut as if it were a cursed thing. Her face was like stone.

"What the hell _was_ that?" Jubilee whispered to Logan beside her.

"The _Libris Veritatus_," he replied, not bothering to lower his voice. "Destiny's prophecies. The future history of mutantkind." His tone was stern, unforgiving as he addressed the older woman. "So you knew this would happen, huh? And you didn't even try to stop it?"

Irene's mouth was a hard, straight line, making no excuses. He was half glad – if she had, it might have tipped him over into the rage he was still teetering precariously on the edge of.

"I can't believe it," Raven said, and for the first time Logan heard real vulnerability in her voice. "I can't believe you would hide this from me, Irene. I can't believe you've allowed this to happen." She turned; a tear streaked down a cheek as she did so. And that was it. The only tear Logan ever saw her shed.

In another moment that look was gone and that inscrutable hardness had returned. She swept past them towards the door with a look of steely determination. It was as if no else in the room existed at all.

"Where're you goin'?" Logan growled at her, and she stopped at the door, her hand hovering over the handle like a moment stopped in time.

"There's only one way to stop all this," she spoke gravely. "And that's to kill Essex before he kills her."

"What the hell— By yourself?" Jubilee cried, just as Logan cut in right over her: "You're out of your fuckin' mind, Mystique. What we need is to take stock and figure out a way of getting Rogue out alive. Look at what happened to my team – we're gonna need everyone we can get to infiltrate Sinister's base, which means we're gonna haveta wait for some serious injuries to be healed."

"You think I'm going to sit here and _wait_ for you to figure out a way to rescue my daughter?!" Raven snarled at him.

"You can go get yourself killed if you want to," he retorted coolly. "Which is what you're gonna do if you go chargin' into Sinister's lair without a plan or a backup. Either way, you ain't gonna do Rogue any favours by turnin' up on her doorstep dead."

She turned to look at him; he didn't at all like the animal smile that lit her face.

"That's why you're going to come with me, Logan."

"_No_," he retorted. "I'm needed here."

"No. You're not. Let Jubilee stay here and nurse the children to health. You've grown soft in your old age, Logan. _This_ is what you were made for. To fight. And the both of us know one thing for certain – we should've killed Essex _long_ ago. Now we have an excuse neither of us can pass up."

The silence that followed was enough to leave no doubt that he was tempted. Jubilee read him loud and clear.

"_No_, Wolvie," she begged him. "No _way_."

Yet still he remained silent.

"You won't stop me from going," Raven declared defiantly. "And I'm wasting enough time standing here talking to you as it is. I've spent a lifetime trying to keep Rogue out of Sinister's clutches. Now, more than ever, I cannot allow it to happen. So maybe there'll be hell to pay. That's a price worth paying for Rogue. It always has been. It always _will_ be."

And with that she pushed open the door and charged out.

Logan stared after her with the claws itching to pop out of his knuckles. Jubilee turned and looked him right in the eye.

"_No_, Logan," she said again sternly. "You're not going."

"She don't stand a chance by herself," he growled back. "With me, she stands at least half a chance of gettin' Rogue out."

"_Half_ a chance," Jubilee agreed pointedly. "And that is nowhere close enough to being good odds, Wolvie."

"Not unless Irene is actually right," Logan replied. "Not unless Gambit is actually on our side."

"And you believe that?"

They both threw a look at Irene, whose eyes were now cast back to a floor she could not see. The diary lay closed in her lap.

"No," he said at last. "But I ain't sure I believe in those damn prophecies either." He took Jubilee by the shoulders, continued: "You'll take care of things while I'm away, right?"

"Aw, hell!" she exhaled sulkily. "This sucks major balls, Wolvie. If you die, we're _all_ toast. You do know that, right?"

"Didn't you hear, kid? I'm real hard to kill." He grinned. "Don't wait up."

And the next moment he had brushed past her and out the door.

Jubilee was left with the silence and an old woman who seemed to have started the mutant answer to World War III.

"Couldn't you _stop_ them?" she demanded accusingly. Irene did not even turn to her.

"No," she said in an almost dreamy tone. "Let them go. It's for the best."

"Yeah?" Jubilee muttered under her breath, kicking aside a loose stub of cigar Logan had left lying on the floor. "Well I sure as hell don't like your idea of what's for the best. Seems like all it does is get people killed."

-oOo-

There wasn't much to it.

Just a small sliver of organic material floating in a glass tube. That was how much lay between him and the person he was supposed to be – a person of unstoppable power.

Remy lay back in the surgical pod and watched it. This insignificant piece of him in the hands of another – in the hands of Sinister. And he thought, perhaps, that hehad _always_ been right there. In Sinister's hands, from the moment of his birth.

There was something poetic in this. A sense of coming home, a sense of completion. The righting of a wrong; and the promise of something new and frightening.

Remy wasn't a poetic man, not in that sense. But this he felt keenly – that this was the first time in his life that he would be whole.

He didn't know what it meant, exactly. This was a gamble, he had no illusions about that. But gambles were what he did. He wasn't afraid of them. He was more afraid of what he would be capable of once this operation was over. He was afraid of losing that carefully crafted control. It was that control that made him the man he was as opposed to the man that everyone saw. Losing hold of that control meant losing himself.

Debating all this now was a moot point. He wasn't backing out of this, and in fact, he'd never even considered it. This was all just the culmination of several months' work, doing everything that was asked of him, making sure that Essex knew he was in for the duration. Despite everything, Essex had never fully trusted him. It'd taken a lot of work to convince him that, yes, he knew now that hiding Rogue from him had been a mistake. Besides, what he was worth to Sinister was more than just the price of a prized asset. He had to believe he was worth all the years that Essex had spent watching him, cultivating him, from the sidelines.

"No changes of heart, LeBeau?" Essex said from the bedside, each word faintly mocking. "No lingering doubts?"

He held the small vial up to the light between thumb and forefinger. That tiny piece of brain matter bobbed in liquid the colour of chartreuse. It occurred to Remy that anything could be in that vial; that it was entirely possible that Essex was playing him. But it was too late to think about that too.

"_Non_," he replied in that same deadpan voice. Essex grinned that same expansive smile, all teeth and no lips.

"Excellent." He turned aside, began to prepare the injection of anaesthetic. "I must admit," he continued reflectively, "I am quite interested to finally see the results of this particular experiment. After a delay of some thirty years, it does give one a certain _thrill_ to finally complete what was meant to be one's crowning accomplishment. You will be as you were always intended to be. My greatest masterpiece. My son."

Remy felt a wave of unease, of disgust, at those two awful words – _my son. _When Sinister turned back the syringe was full in his hand. Remy felt it go in, a pinprick followed by the icy sensation of the anaesthetic coursing through his vein. Essex stared down at him with the glowing red eyes that he now realised so resembled his own.

"Do you remember, Gambit?" he spoke in that velvet voice. "When you first came to me?"

The drug was already taking effect, the coldness giving way to a prickling warmth. His mind was suddenly sluggish, forming no reply.

"You were damaged goods," Sinister continued, in a voice that began to sound increasingly far away. "And I was forced to degrade you further. But now – finally – the failure shall be corrected. When you wake up, you shall have returned to the fold, LeBeau. In every way imaginable."

There was that laughter, floating thinner and thinner in the space between waking and consciousness, until there was nothing left but silence.

-oOo-

Gambit had gone.

At least his psyche had gone.

Rogue had stood outside that plain white door in that plain white corridor and knocked, more than once. And when there had been no answer she had opened the door. She had stepped inside, and shut the door behind her.

He hadn't been in there either, but she hadn't left.

She had stood just inside the doorway for what felt like an age, before moving slowly to the mattress and sitting heavily on the edge.

And now her stomach was churning horribly. Churning with all the memories encapsulated in this space, this place that now seemed so terribly tainted.

She sighed and rubbed her face wearily with both hands.

It was always either dawn or dusk in the safe house, and she didn't know why that was, but it was nice that way. Peaceful. When by rights her psyche should be breaking apart at the seams and everything here should be in chaos. But it wasn't. Everything was calm, tranquil. A shaft of dusty sunlight peeking in through half-closed curtains. The scent of the both of them curling about her like a safety blanket.

In this place him and her were still alive, even though on the outside they were deader than dead.

And it hurt.

Rogue took in a wavering breath and let it out slowly.

She wasn't sure why she had sought out his psyche at all. Maybe it was the fact that she needed a link to a past where things had been less complicated between them, where trust hadn't even come into the equation.

But being here… It wasn't a comfort.

Because even here, in the safe house, when their lives had overlapped so selfishly, so greedily, for so short a time… even here he had known. He had _known_ that Essex had always wanted her, that she had always meant _something_ to him. There had never been a time when Remy _hadn't _known. He had _always_ been lingering on the edge of a betrayal where she was concerned. All he'd ever needed was a push.

She hugged her knees to her chest and held herself tight. There was a sour taste on her tongue and she swallowed it down but it didn't go. This was her place, this was her mind, it was her sanctuary and she was supposed to come here to _heal_. But everything hurt. _Everything_.

_It's week 3 at the holiday home._

_ She doesn't want to leave and she's beginning to think maybe he doesn't want to either. _

_ It's taken all this time and all this shit, but he's finally opened up to her. He laughs like he's happy here. He holds her hand without her having to take it first. Sometimes they spend hours in each other's company without having to say anything and it's nice. They're comfortable with one another. They can be in-love and not have to hide it._

_ It's early in the morning and she hasn't a clue what time it is, but Rachel is out. They heard her go out the front door about five minutes ago. She goes out every morning, to the lake, to the woods. Most days he gets up too and follows her. Watches her. Makes sure there's no trace of her Hound instincts coming back. But this morning he doesn't. He stays in bed._

_ "Ain'tcha gonna go spy on her?" she asks him, and there's a hard little edge to her voice because she doesn't approve of him treating the girl like an enemy and he knows it. But he lies there, eyes closed with the sun shining on his olive skin and he curls a smile and says, "Nope."_

_ He takes her hand. He kisses it. She rolls over to him, she covers him with kisses until he begs her for mercy, and they laugh and they gasp and they moan and…_

_ And afterwards he lies with his head at her breast and she runs her fingers through his hair with the deepest feeling of contentment. It's what she feels with him, here, in this place. Contentment. When they first arrived here it'd been like paradise. Everything so free, so perfect. Like the dream home she'd never bothered to wish for. This comfort, this security, it had lulled them into something more than all those days spent on the road ever could have done. They had a bed to sleep in, a room to call their own. They'd made love every which way they could imagine, in almost every room of the house, anywhere they can get it… And it isn't even about lust anymore. It isn't even about _want_. It's about being close to someone. It's about knowing them inside and out, it's about trust and tenderness and give and take. It's about holding. It's about loving. _

_It's why, she thinks, they never get bored._

_ "Don'tcha ever get bored?" she asks him, and he says,"Non," and it's as if the word should speak for itself – he doesn't qualify his answer with anything more._

_ And she begins to think, maybe he wants this, maybe he wants this to last forever, him and her and Rachel; maybe he loves this more than this drive he has to be _free_…_

_ She thinks about the length and breadth of their relationship; she thinks about their time with the X-Men and how, even then, even though he had been working for Sinister, there had always been _something_ genuine and true about him whenever he was with her._

_ "Wouldja have done it?" she asks him on an impulse, and he runs his fingers down over her abdomen, making her shiver at his touch, and he answers in a murmur, "Done what?"_

_ His breath is warm on his stomach and she suppresses another shudder, says, "Betrayed the X-Men to Sinister. You told Rachel you were confused about your loyalties by the time the military attacked. And Ah don't believe for a second that all the good stuff you did as an X-Man was ever just a pretence."_

_ He's silent for a minute, his forefinger dipping into her navel and circling it gently._

_ "It wasn't," he replies shortly. He seems to be deep in thought._

_ "So you wouldn't have? Betrayed us, Ah mean?"_

_ "I wouldn't have betrayed _you_. Or Stormy, I guess."_

_ He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her. His shields are down. He's not lying._

_ "Don'tcha ever get worried, Remy?" she quizzes him curiously. "That Essex will call in a marker one day? We're headin' out t' find Logan and the other X-Men right now, aren't we. What if he decides he wants them again? What would you do?"_

_ He considers her a long moment, his dark eyes caressing her face, his mouth caught in a frown that's almost… sad. And his fingers touch the butterfly pendant at her breast and he says, "I'd keep him from hurtin' _you_."_

_ And she shoots him a nettled look, piqued by his answer._

_ "So you don't give a fuck about Logan or Rachel or any of the others that could still be alive…?"_

_ And there is this look on his face, this expression that is sad and solemn and truthful and totally unguarded and he says, "_You_ first, Anna. De others come a very distant second."_

Rogue shook herself, strangely surprised to find that tears were smarting her eyes.

_You idiot,_ she reprimanded herself bitterly. _ Fallin' for his lies, lettin' him sweet talk you into believin' that you were worth more to him than Sinister's hold, than his own self-interests. And look how that turned out, huh? Look at where it's gotten you, gal._

But she knew that when he'd said it, it hadn't just been lies, it hadn't been just sweet-talk. He'd meant it when he said it. And somehow that made everything worse.

She looked round the empty room, her eyes burning with an angry moisture.

It was better that his psyche wasn't here.

She didn't know what she might do to him, even if she couldn't physically connect with him here, even if he wasn't the man her fists were itching to dish the dirt out on.

She couldn't stand to be another moment in this traitorous place.

The revulsion she felt was almost tangible and she marched out of the room quickly, slamming the door shut behind her.

It had been a foolish grasp for comfort, she saw that now. What she needed was something she could work with, something that could actually _help_ her whenever she woke up. She didn't care what Irene had said about _letting _this happen. Now that she knew the extent of Sinister's plans for her, her position was untenable. She _wasn't_ going to take this, and she was ready to fight him to the death if she had to.

Even if it meant it was Remy she had to fight instead.

But yet again Irene's door was closed tight shut. No amount of pulling, shoving or banging would get it to open. It hardly seemed fair, Rogue thought. This was _her_ head after all.

"Still no joy?"

It was Rachel, leaning outside her own door a little way down the white corridor, arms crossed. Rogue decided to give up. It was clear to her that where Irene was concerned, there was only one person that was boss and it wasn't her.

"Ah dunno," Rogue sighed, turning away from the door and walking towards the younger woman. "With Irene, if there's nothin' more to be said, there's nothin' more to be said. She won't come out till there is." She paused, looked around her. "Where's Gambit?"

Rachel shrugged.

"Dunno. Haven't seen him for a while now. That's kinda weird, huh? Did you two have a fight or something?"

Rogue thought about it. In all honesty she wasn't sure. Things had been left hanging since the last time she'd been in here. She remembered the look on his face when he'd confessed to her just how deep and longstanding his treachery had been. Maybe he was avoiding her, too ashamed to face her again, certain that she would want nothing more to do with him. It wasn't like Remy, but then, this Remy wasn't exactly like the Remy on the outside anyway.

Not that she was entirely sure what the Remy on the outside was _like_ anymore.

"We didn't argue," Rogue spoke awkwardly. "Just… things have got kinda complicated on the outside…"

Rachel nodded.

"I kinda guessed. What with Gambit gone and you banging on the old lady's door… Anything I can do to help?"

Rogue was almost surprised at that; she had to remind herself that this Rachel was not the Rachel she had parted from, the one who had made it clear they were no longer friends and probably wouldn't ever be again. She held back her own swell of shame.

"Nah. It's okay. Ah'd ask yah to call me if y' see Gambit around, but Ah don't even know if you'll be able to get hold of me the way things are goin' on out there."

There was concern on Rachel's face.

"It's bad, isn't it," she said. "I mean… I saw the other two coming in. They weren't even moving. I thought they were dead, but then, they're psyches, right? How can they be dead? Anyway," she frowned, and Rogue realised she was talking about Leech and Sage, "they freaked me out some. I went back inside. When I came out again, they were gone."

"Gone?"

"Uh-huh. Like they'd never been here. Thought maybe I was going crazy, but, well… this is a weird place. I guess weird things happen all the time…"

Rogue looked about her again. It was too difficult to tell right now where the psyches of Sage and Leech might be hidden; but their disappearance would account for the fact that she hadn't experienced much of the after effects of absorbing them.

"You think Remy put them away for me?" she wondered out loud. Rachel shrugged again.

"Possible. Like I said, I haven't seen or spoken to him in a while…" She halted, and Rogue chewed on her lip. This was the first time in a long time that she'd felt totally out of control. Irene had told her to sit tight, let this all happen around her. But for how long? She'd come here with the intention of getting one last word of reassurance from her, but that wasn't happening. And Rogue didn't like just sitting back and letting things happen, not when she was as vulnerable as this. She needed something as a failsafe, as backup. Gambit was usually good at providing that. But now he was nowhere in sight.

"Actually," she began again thoughtfully, "I _do_ have a favour to ask."

"What?" Rachel asked. "If I can help…"

"Just… Ah need to have access to your powers, if you can do that. Truth is, Ah don't even know if Ah'll be able to access my own powers when Ah wake up, but if Ah do…"

"Sure." Rachel shrugged again casually; Rogue realised it had been a habit of hers as a child, but something the older Rachel – the Rachel she'd spent that time with at the vacation house with Remy – had never really done. "It's all yours, Rogue. If there's anything more I can do to help…"

"Ah'll let you know," Rogue assured her. She paused. There was a strange sensation coming over her; an impression of something tugging lightly at her skin in quick, teasing pinpricks. "It may haveta come to that."

The feeling was getting more and more insistent, and suddenly she realised what it meant. She was waking up; but this was no easy, natural transition into consciousness. This was entirely against her will.

"Damn," she muttered. The pull was all over her now, rough and unrelenting. The world around her was going choppy, like a digital signal breaking up. She saw Rachel's face in frames per second, alarm growing on her features moment by moment. "Ah gotta go now," Rogue told her, but she only heard the words as if they were in her own head – she had no idea if she'd said them or not. There was no point in fighting this.

So she spread out her arms and let whatever it was take her.

-oOo-


	11. Deception

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** To my lovely reviewers - **Warrior-princess1980, StormBreeze, flaming-mod, RRL24, slightlyxjaded, KitsuK8, FF2Addict** and my anonymous **Guest**... This is for you. You continue to amaze me with your insightfulness and your ability to see things I didn't even notice about this story! So I feel I must apologise, because there are going to be about a thousand cliffhangers a minute from here on in. Nevertheless I hope you'll be squirming with enjoyment rather than all out irritation. Please, please do continue to review my work - I appreciate your comments, feelings, suggestions, opinion - anything you have to give me!

And PS: someone clearly needs to write a Mystique x Wolverine team-up fic judging from all your geek out comments... ;)

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART TWO : SINISTER_  
**

**(11) - Deception -**

The first thing she saw was Remy's face; eyes in the darkness, peering down at her expectantly.

She was back on the gurney; once again the nullifier was round her neck. She immediately knew where it was she was going. She half sat up, alarmed, held down only by the straps about her limbs. She'd never woken up feeling this alert before. All her wits were about her. She was wide awake and more.

"I gave you a stimulant," Remy told her, seeing her sudden confusion. "I need you awake."

"You do, or Essex does?" she asked coldly. Not a blink of the eye, not a twitch of the lips touched his face.

"Does it matter?" he asked evenly.

"No," she answered softly, bitterly. "Ah guess not."

He made no more attempt at conversation, but focused on the corridor ahead of him, the line of his mouth thin and taut. She saw now what she had failed to register before – walls of dark titanium, practically impenetrable, the kind of impersonal and functional design reserved for government bunkers or NASA test facilities. She'd been in a few. None of them had been half as creepy as this place though.

"Ah ain't gonna cooperate, y'know," she told him defiantly.

He didn't even look at her.

"Wouldn't expect any less from you, Rogue."

The gurney came to a halt. The door she now faced was also made of titanium; Remy scanned in his palm print; the door unlocked and slid open. He wheeled her in as before, flicked on the lights. As soon as he had undone her bindings she sat up and rubbed her sore wrists. Without the haze of the drugs, everything hurt. Her arms, her legs, her stomach, her head… Everything. The collar round her neck chafed; even the thin paper gown grated the rawness of her skin. She fingered it gingerly. Her first estimation had been right. No chinks, no weaknesses.

"Issa waste o' time, Rogue," he told her. "You could fight, if'n you wanted to. Like I said, I wouldn't expect any less. But you might as well save your strength. You'll be needin' it."

"Oh yeah?" She slid off the trolley and glared at him. "For what? So Ah can do this?"

She swung at him, faster than thought; her fist connected with his jaw with a satisfying _smack_. It was far from enough to deck him, but he was surprised enough for Rogue to relish the hit. She raised her arm for another strike, but this time he was ready for her, catching her wrist easily as it fell.

"Don't do dis, _chere_," he warned her calmly. "I don't wanna haveta hurt you."

"Oh really?" She pushed against his grasp, itching to connect again. "Too late, sugah – you already did!"

She gave up with that arm, lashed out with the other; but he caught that one just as easily.

"I mean it, _chere_," he grunted, and she was glad to see that she was putting up enough of a fight to make him break out a sweat; she hoped he was regretting the stimulant right about now. "You have no idea what I'm capable of now. I could kill you where you stand."

"So do it, Remy!" she bit back at him. "It'd be better than goin' through one more day of what that monster has in store!"

She dug her foot into his abs and kicked hard. He hadn't been expecting _that_ either. He staggered back, hitting the computer console, loosening his grip on her as he did so. She turned, picked up the syringe that was still lying on the gurney, the nearest weapon to hand. There wasn't even the slightest hint of fear on his face as she advanced on him, the needle raised in her fist, even if he knew it was a lethal weapon in her hands. If anything he looked amused.

"Dat's one t'ing I love about you, _chere_," he bantered appreciatively. "Give you half an inch and you don't just take de mile. You _make_ de whole damn fuckin' mile."

"This ain't no joke, Cajun," she retorted acidly, now only within a couple of feet of him. "Ah'm seriously considering whether to take your eye out with this, or whether to just shove it right through your heart. Maybe Ah'll just go for the first option – Ah ain't convinced you have a heart to hurt."

There it was – that sexy half-smile of his. Thinking he could charm her out of making him suffer the way she had. He was _infuriating_.

"Much as I'd like to tussle wit' you, Rogue, I'm afraid de fun would be over before it's even begun. Essex will be here any minute now."

And that _really_ made her mad.

"Yah think Ah give a flyin' fuck whether he comes or not?! Ah'll kill him too! The more the merrier!"

There then gone; the smile vanished from his lips in a flash.

"_Non_, you won't." He glanced at the syringe in her hand; just a mere flick of the eyes as she advanced closer and closer towards him. "And I can't have you messin' wit' de plan."

He blinked; and she came to a sudden halt as the needle in her hand started to glow a bright pink, the weapon vibrating with that familiar high-pitched thrum. She gaped at it as if it were something contagious.

"What the _fuck_?!"

_He didn't even touch it!_

"Drop dat and it goes _boom_," he informed her casually, smugly. "Hell, you might t'ink dat's a good idea, but you might as well wait till Sinny comes."

She stood there, transfixed, knowing that the slightest move could set it off.

"How the _hell_—?"

"Did I do that? Simple. I just thought it." He finally pushed himself off of the console and walked right up to her, so close that he was within about an inch of her, right inside her space.

"Damn you, Cajun!" she ground out from between gritted teeth, the ticking time bomb in her hand the only thing preventing her from planting another fist on his face. "Ah'm a woman on the edge right now, and Ah'm more than willin' t' risk mah shitty life takin' y'all down if Ah haveta."

The words were softly spoken, but held such an undercurrent of charged ferocity that he didn't doubt her sincerity for a moment. His expression darkened into something hard and dangerous.

"I'm askin' you nice, Rogue," he murmured in a low undertone. "You play dis rough, it ain't gonna turn out pretty. I don't_ need_ to touch to use my powers anymore. All I need is a thought; all I need is to _want_ it." He paused, assessing her mutinous stare, seeing her tremble at his closeness, at the veiled implication of his words. "And my powers ain't just restricted to inanimate objects either," he continued, his eyes flickering. "I can charge organic material too. Dat means pretty much _anyt'ing, p'tit._ No limits." He reached out and flipped a lock of white hair casually between his fingers, insinuating, as he did so, just how easy it would be to burn her up. He held her eyes meaningfully, speaking again only when he was certain his words had sunk in. "So you see, Rogue," he finished quietly, seriously, "it ain't a good idea to mess wit' me right now. You might as well save yourself the bother. Cooperate, and you won't get hurt."

Hurt?

_Hurt_?

The word echoed shrilly in her mind.

The idea that she could be hurt more than she already was almost made her choke back a bitter laugh. The only thing she had left was defiance, and she was ready to give it to him in spades if she had to. After all the pain of his betrayal, his threat of physical harm only served to further hone the sharpened sense of wounded indignation burning away inside of her, and she _wanted_ him to feel it.

"_Take. Your. Hand. Offa me,_" she demanded fiercely, her voice shaking with barely suppressed rage. He saw the seriousness in her eyes; only then did he draw back his hand and take a step away. It wasn't even close to being far enough. She stood there, trembling powerfully, still holding the charged syringe in her hand. He suddenly seemed to remember it; he reached out with his left hand and gently worked it out of her grasp, simultaneously releasing the charge from it as he did so. He calmly laid it on top of the console behind him while she let her body finally relax, allowing herself to breathe deep. He stood, waiting for her to gather herself, making no sound, making no move.

"Sinister restored your Omega level powers," she murmured at last, in a voice that still trembled. He nodded.

"_Oui_."

She bit back the urge to swear. How could she untangle this? This fate that now seemed closer than ever?

"I'm sorry, Rogue," he apologised when he saw her expression, in a tone that nevertheless did not indicate regret. "Dis is de way it has t' be."

"Bullshit," she muttered. "Ah don't believe it."

He looked frustrated, contemptuous even.

"Believe what you want, Rogue. Don't make a lotta difference now. Like I said, you _could _put up a fight if you wanted. But I don't t'ink you'd stand much of a chance."

"You wouldn't _dare_," she hissed at him.

"Wouldn't I?" He raised an eyebrow at her; before she could even answer the butterfly pendant round her neck was jangling at her chest, glowing in the brilliant pink light of his energy signature, keeping her still, preventing her from carrying out her threat and making a move against him. "I killed a man once," he told her matter-of-factly, his eyes on hers, his expression now open, honest. "A man I hated, and who hated me. De brother of de woman I loved. He tried to tear us apart. So I killed him. I burned him alive. For her."

"Belladonna," she whispered, and the butterfly shuddered, beat its silver wings against her heart…

"_Oui_," he nodded soberly. "And you know what de irony was? In gettin' him outta de way _I_ was de one who drove her away and fucked up my life wit' de Guild, ended everyt'ing I'd known and loved. I regretted what I did. I was a kid back den, I let my emotions control my powers. What makes me stronger today is knowin' when _not_ to use my powers. It ain't about _darin'_ t' do t'ings, Rogue. It's about being ready t' do them at de _right time_, whenever needed." He reached out then, without any insinuation, only with the same honesty with which he had confessed the truth to her, the one mistake that had guided so much of his life. He cupped his hand over the butterfly pendant at her breast, and in the heat of his charge it danced against her skin as though it were alive.

"Don't ruin dis, _chere_," he murmured, and it was the sincerity in his words that captivated her, not their charm. "Don't make me make de choice to hurt you. I don't wanna haveta do dat, but I will, if it comes to it. I _would_ dare."

The conversation was interrupted by the door of the gangway beginning to slide open, and yet again Remy took a step back, then another. He never once took his eyes from hers, nor did he release the charge on the butterfly pendant at her neck. She held in a shallow breath, trying to read what she saw in his eyes, even as tears of hurt and rage gathered behind her own.

"You're early," Essex's voice rasped above them. Remy finally tore his gaze away, looked up. Essex was walking along the gangway, looking down on them with narrowed eyes. When he saw the charged necklace at her throat, he paused. "Hmmm. What have we here?"

"She came at me wit' a syringe," Remy explained nonchalantly. "Had to figure out a way to keep her still."

Rogue didn't deign to open her mouth. She let Sinister think what he wanted to think as he walked down the stairs towards them.

"Excellent," he praised her gleefully. "Of course this does not surprise me – I would not have chosen you, Rogue, if I had not thought you resourceful and endlessly creative in your choice of attack. These are all skills that will work to the benefit of my future army."

"Are yah deaf?" Rogue spat at him belligerently. "Ah told you – Ah ain't gonna head no army for yah. And if yah tried to make me – well, Remy can just burn me up if he wants, like he's threatened to. Ah ain't yours to mess with, Essex!"

"Indeed." Essex's expression was withering. "You are quite stubborn. And these are all excellent qualities in a soldier – persistent, tenacious, dogged determination. However, I am beginning to see that there is one major flaw that you possess – and that is your natural wilfulness. It is of no use to me. Had you remained in my care throughout your infancy, perhaps I would have been able to limit its effects. As it is, it is quite impossible now to convince you of the advantages you would gain in submitting to me."

"And it took you this long to work that out?" she asked sarcastically; Sinister chuckled.

"LeBeau first drew me to that conclusion. He pointed out to me that you were most unlikely to cooperate in this little project to make you the sum and total of my collection. I asked him if he could convince you that your talents would be best served here. He did not think convincing you would be possible. I have come to agree with his assessment."

Rogue sensed that she was not the only one surprised by this revelation. Remy's expression showed that he, too, hadn't expected it. His brow was furrowed as he watched Sinister produce a small vial from the pocket of his lab coat. The liquid in it was clear, viscous, the consistency of a serum. It filled up only half of the glass vessel.

"The answer to this little conundrum came quite suddenly to me – suddenly and simply," Essex explained, gazing at the vial between his fingers lovingly. "Until that moment, I had assumed that the best I could do was work with the shoddy goods I had. But then, it hit me. I had been working on the assumption that you are unique, when, in fact, you are not."

He laughed quietly to himself once more, as if marvelling in the maelstrom of his own genius.

"And so I took the liberty of obtaining a genetic sample from you," he continued blithely. "I would then have the opportunity to make a _new_ you. Of course, this new you, this _clone_, would not have all the many years of experience and training that you have obtained. But this would not altogether be a _bad_ thing. It would afford me the chance to mould you to my own desires, just as I originally intended. And eventually, perhaps, I could create an entire army of_ you_. Just think of it, Rogue," he lilted menacingly. "Think of the power that would be in the hands of the man that controlled your clones. They would be a walking war machine, able to access the sum total of _all_ mutant powers on a whim. They would be awesome and terrifying. The statics will worship before my feet as they lie in the wake of utter destruction you will wreak!"

Rogue listened, unimpressed by what now seemed very clear to her were nothing more than the ravings of a mad man.

"There's one thing you forgot, Sinister," she reminded him quietly. "And that's the fact that Ah have psyches in mah head that belong to people who ain't here anymore. Cyclops and Jean Grey are in here." She touched her temple. "You can make all those clones absorb the rest of your collection, but they'll only have half of what Ah've got. They'll never be _unique_, not like me."

"On the contrary, my dear Rogue," Sinister rejoined silkily, "I forgot no such thing. Your part to play in this is not quite done. Not by a long way. If I cannot convince you to cooperate, then you shall simply _join_ my collection. And _your_ clones will absorb you and every psyche that you possess upon their birth. _Your_ legacy will remain here, in this very room. You will be the fountain they drink from, endless and un-aging and quite perfect. This is why I have brought you here today. To take your place in my unique collection and to become the mother of my army."

He swivelled, turning towards the wall of bodies that surrounded them. "Gambit," he ordered, the fervour in his tone now cold, "bring down an empty tank for our guest here."

There was a pause, during which Rogue's mind raced wildly, rabidly for some way out of this, knowing instinctively that Irene would never, _could_ never have wanted this for her… If only Remy didn't have her by the balls with his damned charge turning the one precious item she possessed into an explosion just waiting to happen… …

"No," his voice cut through the frenzied working of her mind, clear and firm and self-assured. Rogue sucked in a quick breath, glanced over at him in confusion. He did not return the look. His eyes were on Essex, calm and grave. Sinister halted in his tracks, but did not turn.

"_What_?" he spoke in a voice like daggers.

"I said no," Remy replied dispassionately. "Dis gone far enough. I'm ending it."

Sinister whipped round, his eyes burning, a sibilant hiss emanating from his lips; but before he could speak or make any further move, the vial in his hand began to glow an intense pink; and Rogue felt a wellspring of emotion surge through her – confusion, anger, surprise – a slither of _hope. _She realised that it was not the container that was being charged, it was the contents that were glowing – her own genetic material was bubbling, frothing under the heat, burning brighter and brighter, boiling more and more violently until the glass cracked and the liquid inside had vaporised. Sinister glared at the now empty vessel as if unable to believe what had just occurred in a simple matter of seconds. First realisation, then anger clouded his face. A low growl sounded in his throat and he cast the broken vial against the floor. It smashed at his feet, sending shards of glass skidding across the floor in all directions.

"You are a fool, LeBeau," he spat venomously; but Remy's expression was unconcerned.

"Dat's a matter of perspective. I've actually never felt saner in my life." He unsheathed the knife from the belt at his thigh, tossed it in the air and caught it again deftly. Essex sneered at him.

"So. You plan to kill me. How very _boorish_ of you."

"You gon' try and stop me?" Remy returned lightly, running a fingertip across the edge of the blade, sending pink sparks flying off the cold metal. He was confident. Rogue could feel it, in the charge of the butterfly at her neck. It was steady, sure, light.

"I hardly think it matters whether I do or not," Essex replied in slow, measured tones, in words that nevertheless held a wealth of furtive meaning. Remy heard it. The knife went still in his hand. "You must think me a fool, LeBeau," Essex continued disdainfully. "Do you really think me ignorant of the hold this woman has on you? You are mistaken. As a matter of fact, I have been waiting for this weakness of yours to surface. I have made… _provisions_ for this little eventuality."

He chuckled softly, ominously, and Rogue felt the charge in her pendant change. It skittered against her breast, juddering violently, so violently she feared it would shatter if she even moved.

"_Remy_…" she breathed warningly, and he suddenly seemed to notice her. The next moment the charge had dissipated into thin air. Finally free to move, she made a step towards Sinister, aiming to take him out of the game with a fist, with whatever she had available; but before she could bridge the gap between them Essex had whipped a remote control from his pocket, pressed a button. A shock of electricity jolted through her from the ring at her neck, locking her limbs, tripping her nerves into a cascade of tightly focused pain. Rogue screamed, fighting it, fighting with every ounce of her being, knowing that this was an impossible foe to beat. Those few moments seemed to last forever before Remy charged the remote. Essex let go of it just as it exploded in mid-air; the electric current dispersed, and Rogue fell to the floor on legs that could no longer support her weight.

"Tut tut, Rogue," Essex cooed mockingly above her. "Always in a rush to mete out justice to the fallen. Lucky for you you have a knight in shining armour."

"Ah'll see you dead, Essex," she seethed up at him through the pain, but Sinister merely laughed.

"I hardly think so. Were you to kill me, things might look very bad for my dear, beloved son over there."

She glared up at him in disbelief.

"_Son?_"

"What? You didn't _know_?" Essex expression was gleeful. "Isn't it obvious, my dear? Has he not just demonstrated to you the extent of his newly restored powers? And they can far outstrip what you have witnessed today, let me assure you. He is exactly as I made him to be – a son worthy of his father. Such a shame that he has proved to be nothing but a disappointment to me. Unruly, wayward, and completely lacking in self-discipline. Capable of ruthlessness yet totally devoid of wider ambition. Unable to see himself as a part of the bigger picture, that which paints _homo superior_ as the rightful rulers of this planet. A selfish man who cannot see beyond the pathetic wants and desires of his own wretched life. He, as you, has been spoiled by an outside world that appreciates nothing of the power of which you are capable. You have served the enemies of mankind's inevitable evolution well. But never fear, my dear," he grinned coldly, "he shall serve me yet. It will be_ impossible_ for him to deny me."

"Yah still think you can turn him round?" she shot back. The pain was easing away from her, slowly but surely. "Even after everythin' you've just said? Why would you even want him if he's that much of a disappointment?"

"Because he is unique," Sinister replied simply. "And because he is the son that was always _meant_ to have been mine." He turned to Remy, who'd been standing, listening silently, throughout all of this. "Go on, Gambit. Strike me down. Kill me, if you wish. It will only serve to fulfil my plans."

"I ain't got no interest in killin' you," Remy rejoined decidedly, re-sheathing the knife. "Just let her go, Essex, and you can do whatever de hell you want."

"I'm afraid that isn't possible, LeBeau," Essex replied coolly.

Rogue let out a growl of frustration.

"For Gawd's sake just kill him, Remy, otherwise Ah will!"

"_Non_," Remy replied. "Not yet anyhow. He's right – killin' him won't make a difference. He'll just come back as someone else. He can't _be_ killed."

There was that low, sardonic chuckle again, a soft and sinister soundtrack to Rogue's sudden inner turmoil.

"So you did your homework, LeBeau," Essex spoke appreciatively. "Well done. But I am afraid I cannot let Rogue go. She is far too important to my plans."

"Ah'm gonna kill you!" Rogue snarled, propping herself up on all fours. "Ah don't care whether you come back or not, Ah'll keep killin' yah till you _stay_ dead!"

"Kill me and you kill your lover," Sinister sneered down at her. "It's as simple as that." He looked across at Remy. "I have been preparing for your betrayal for quite some time now, LeBeau. And so I took the liberty of setting up a simple form of security should such an event occur – yesterday, when I performed the operation to restore your powers to you, I added in a little something else as well."

As Rogue got to her feet she saw the look on Remy's face change from quietly confident to dark and full of doubt. His cool calm broke – snapped. What control he had left in his features barely remained in place. It was the closest she'd seen him to losing it in a long time.

"You implanted me with your genetic memory," he stated in a voice that also seemed on the verge of breaking into something untamed and violent. Again, Sinister chuckled.

"And the penny finally drops. Yes – such has always been my plan. Our genetic template is close enough for complete assimilation. In you I shall have the power that was always _destined _to have been mine. Thanks to you I will be reborn as one of the most powerful mutants this world has known." The grin on his face widened; Rogue saw Remy's hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, his face livid. Fear, anger, tension radiated from him like something toxic; she could feel him fighting an inner instinct to lash out, fighting the urge to see Essex twisting and turning in the raw flame of his power. She struggled with the instinct – her innate drive – to join the fray, to _fight_, despite not knowing for certain who was truly foe or ally; but there was nothing she could do with the dampener about her neck. She was the loser in this battle of wits and she knew it.

_Stay calm, Remy,_ she willed him to hear her. _Just gimme an opening. Just gimme an opening and Ah'll end this…_

"You have played a very fine game, LeBeau," Sinister continued, turning away as if this round of chess had drawn to its long-awaited conclusion; "but I think it's time we _both_ ended this charade. I have, simply put, outmanoeuvred you. Kill me, and you _become_ me. Leave me, wait for time to take its course and lead me to the grave, you _still_ become me. Whatever course you choose to take, I win. _Game over_."

As he turned, that's when Gambit finally gave her that long-awaited opening. Rogue felt a low hum inside the ring about her neck; a split second later and there was the sharp sound of the locking mechanism giving way under the smallest of his controlled detonations. The nullifier fell open and clattered to the floor at her feet.

"Essex," she called out to him.

He turned back expectantly, and she didn't waste a second more. She was already channelling Rachel's powers as he spun round and the psychic bolt had hit him right between the eyes less than a millisecond later. Essex sprawled backwards onto the ground, half stunned but by no means out for the count. He had almost scrambled up onto his elbows when Remy reached him.

"_Stay_," he ordered, and Essex did just that – he froze mid-action, his body twisted in the effort to get back to his feet. Rogue gaped as Remy casually took out his quarterstaff, extended it, and slammed it into side of Sinister's skull. Essex toppled over onto his side like a stone statue falling unceremoniously from its plinth.

"About fuckin' time!" Rogue snapped fiercely as he bent over Essex to examine the damage. As he did so Sinister's prone body relaxed back into a mass of ungainly body parts on the floor. "And what the _hell_ did you do to him just there? It was like he was frozen in time or somethin'!"

"He was," Remy replied, standing upright.

"_What?_"

"It'd take a while to explain. Don't t'ink I have de time."

"So why don't you just do what you just did and _freeze_ it again?"

He turned, smiled that lop-sided, humourless smile at her.

"I could try. Dunno if I would be able to pull it off though, not wit'out concentrating." He paused, cast a quick look down at Essex's unconscious form lying huddled on the floor. "Dat was de first time I even did it."

She stared, struggling with her thoughts and how to formulate them. This was all too confusing. She wasn't even a hundred percent certain she could even trust him. What if this was another ruse? He saw her expression.

"I'm sorry," he apologised in a breathless burst; she saw on his face the haggardness that he must have been hiding so meticulously for all this time, and she wanted to feel bad for him but between all the hurt and the betrayal and the _confusion _she _couldn't_ – not yet. "You hurt?"

"Ah'll survive," she muttered, rubbing the side of her neck. It was sore from the tightness of the nullifying ring that had enclosed it. "Can we… can we just get outta here?"

He nodded, turned towards the stairs that led up to the gangway, beckoned for her to join him.

"Dis way."

-oOo-

He stood by the wall of his room and watched openly as she hurriedly zipped herself into the bodysuit he had kept ready and waiting for her all along.

She was angry, she was relieved, she was feeling all sorts of things, and the fact that she knew he was checking her for any damage, any bruising – any _anything_ – was making it worse.

"You okay?" he asked after a moment, nonchalant enough to tell her that he was more anxious than he was letting on. She shoved a foot into a boot, zipping it up so fiercely she thought the zipper might break.

"Ah'm just fine," she shot back at him irritably as she clipped on her utility belt with more force than she'd intended. Her tone clearly said _back off_; but he was worried enough to push it.

"And t'ings up there… In your head…" He trailed off, but the implication was clear – he was worried about her.

And_ that _was what finally got to her. The idea that he had the _gall_ to be concerned about the state of her mind when he had been there right there behind her, _forcing_ her to absorb Sage… when he'd stood by and watched whilst Essex had made her drain a kid dry and done _nothing_... It was more than she could bear.

Without a single word she whipped round and smashed her fist into the side of his face. Hard. Harder than she'd first intended. And once she'd started she couldn't stop. She didn't care whether it had all been a ruse or not. He'd _messed_ with her, he'd darn near stood by and watched her _die_ and it didn't matter whether he was sorry or worried or not, she was _not_ fucking cool with it.

"_You – damn – fuckin' – lyin' – traitorous – SHIT!_" she screeched at him, pummelling his chest with all the raw force she could muster, knowing that it was a _lot_. "_D'ya know what you almost _did_ tah me?! DO YAH?! And yah have the _audacity_ to ask me if Ah'm _okay?!_ Ah _hate _yah, Remy LeBeau! Ah _HATE _yah!_"

Somewhere at the back of her mind she realised that he was _letting_ her hit him, but she was beyond guilt at this point. If he was willing to be her punching bag, she was going to take the opportunity with both hands. Literally. It was only when they both realised that she was gasping back on tears that he ended it before it could any more self-destructive. As she raised her fists for what must've been the twentieth time he caught them, twisted his body, backed her up against the wall with it. She struggled, still enraged, the adrenaline pumping a few more connecting hits from her; but she was exhausted, overwhelmed, and in real, physical pain – when he pressed his weight over her she couldn't fight it. She let him pin her wrists against the wall, let herself give into the pressure of his body.

There was nowhere to manoeuvre, nothing to do but put her face into his shoulder and curse and weep and wail uncontrollably.

He let her.

He didn't move an inch.

He soaked it all in, every last drop of her pain and her anger and her agony.

He took it all until there was nothing left in her but dry, heaving sobs and the drumming of his heartbeat against her own, beating out the untamed tempo of her anguish, drawing her slowly back to her senses.

Its pace told her this was torture for him too.

That his pain almost equalled hers.

She gasped, shuddered, tried to fall into its rhythm. Tried to let it calm her.

"How could you?" she finally whimpered into his shoulder. "How could you do it? After all the trust and love Ah've ever put in you… How could you betray me like that, Remy? How could you hurt me so bad?"

He said nothing, but a spasm shuddered through his body, as though her words were the worst kind of poison to him; but she couldn't stay silent. She needed to bleed this out.

"Ah thought… Ah thought he was gonna kill me…" she wept plaintively. "Ah thought all those dreams that Irene had sent me of the future were _true…_"

"Shhhh…" he murmured, putting his face into her hair, and she tensed, knowing that he wanted to soothe her, to ease her tears away, but unable to accept such intimacy when everything felt so raw.

"Please tell me yah didn't want to betray me, Remy," she couldn't help continuing. "Please tell me y' never wanted t' hurt me…"

Something in the words stirred him more than any punches she could lay on him. He released her wrists, drew his palms up over her cheeks almost feverishly, as if he'd feared he'd never get the chance to touch her again – and pulled her face back to look right into his eyes.

"Never, _chere_," he said hoarsely, sounding almost as feral as Wolverine. "D'ya hear me? _Never_."

"Then why?!" she almost growled at him. "Why did yah do it? Just t' get your damn powers back?!"

"Yes… and _non_." He looked at her intently, desperately needing her to know, to understand. "Lissen t' me, _chere_. Sinister was gonna be after us for de rest of our lives. Don' you see it? He was gonna chase you down eventually. He wanted you dat bad. Raven hid you. I hid you. But you couldn't hide f'ever. Killin' him was de only way to be free and playin' dis game was de only way to get close enough, to get him to trust me enough to get my powers back. I just... I didn't bank on de fact dat he would graft hisself… onto his own fuckin' son…"

The words stilled her. Understanding came to her at last. He wanted his powers for only one purpose; to free them both of Essex. She hiccupped drily, blinking away the tears, the rage; and this time he put his arms round her, held her close – so covetously that she almost thought the both of them might fall apart into a quivering heap on the floor.

"Y' dunno what it did t' me, Anna," he muttered, muffled, into her hair, "t' see what he did t' you, what he made you do. Plan or no plan I woulda killed him slow b'fore I saw you dead, sweet. You gotta believe dat."

And despite all the unspent rancour still seething uneasily in the depths of her, she put her arms round him, she held him tight. She needed something to hold onto, to ground her, to make her feel human once more. She needed to feel more than just a violated pawn.

It seemed an age before she felt sufficiently together to pull away from their embrace; and when she did her heart lurched to see that there was real anguish on his face.

"You ain't his son," she murmured, pressing her forehead to his and meeting his eyes. "It ain't possible…"

"It's possible, _chere_," he answered bitterly. "More den dat – it's de truth."

She frowned, gazed at him intently. His glance didn't waver; she knew then – for real – that it was fact. What got to her was the haunted look in his eyes – how it had obviously eaten at him, gnawed him right down to the heart.

"How long have you known?" she whispered.

His jaw tightened; but just when she thought he'd clam up he spoke softly, quietly.

"I've known for a while now. Amanda Mueller told me. She was de progenitor mutant, as far as Essex knew anyhow. He figured if de two of them made a kid together, it would be de greatest mutant to walk de planet. Heh. Sure as hell don't _feel _great, dat's for certain. Dunno what else dere is to say."

He lowered his eyes then, breaking their gaze despite their closeness. There was shame in the movement, and for the moment it was enough to neutralise any lingering feeling of anger left inside her. All that was left was numbness, exhaustion. She let her body relax against the wall. She let him hold her there.

"You ain't _him_, Remy."

"But a part of me _is_," he returned. "I gotta death sentence over me, Rogue. I can't escape it."

"We'll figure out a way," she reassured him, not sure how it was possible, but knowing that they had to _try_.

"Heh." He lifted his eyes to her again, and something like relief began to play across his face. There was helplessness in his voice. "Tell me enough times, _chere_, and I might believe you."

"We _will_. We'll get Forge on it or somethin'…" She trailed off; it was the only solution she could think of. He laughed bitterly, shaking his head slightly as if in disbelief at her obstinacy.

"Even dis one I don't t'ink Forge can figure out."

They paused, silent, the soft susurration of their whispers spent. It was in the lengthening, widening space of that silence that Rogue felt again just how much ground they had lost to this agonizing ploy of his. She knew he sensed it too, in the way he held her gaze, in the way his shields were down, exposing his shame for her and all to see. It hurt but she wanted to repair it. She wanted to _try_.

She tilted her face to his and their lips touched in a kiss that was tentative, hesitant, uncertain – a barely-there featherstroke of contact.

Too much pain. She broke away on an inhalation, hovered a moment.

He hung back, waiting for her.

And she leaned forward, tried again.

No pretence at romance, no pursuit of desire.

Just a trial at give and take, at closeness, at_ trust_.

And just when she thought it was beginning to_ start_ to feel okay again, the distant sound of a door clanging shut startled them, drawing them quickly apart.

For a brief second she saw in his eyes what she already knew – that it would take more than a kiss to fix this.

"We should go," he finally breathed. She nodded.

He took a reluctant step back and released her from the wall.

Together they ran out of the room without another word.

-oOo-

"So," she asked, as they moved through the corridors as quickly and quietly as they were able. "Tell me, Remy. Why the hell is it so important for you to get your Omega powers back from Essex anyway?"

He said nothing for a long time – so long that she assumed he didn't intend to answer her. He was busy casing out the passageway ahead, his supple body moving with its usual effortless control – but there was something in his posture that told her that the question made him uncomfortable.

"I told you, Rogue," he finally replied, inching his head round a corner to check the coast was clear, which meant, conveniently, that he didn't have to look at her. "I did dis for you."

It was enough to rile her to anger again.

"Do _not_ tell me that all that bullcrap you pulled with Sage and Leech was for _my_ benefit!"

He didn't wince. Instead he paused, swivelled away from the wall, and gave her a sidelong glance.

"You're right, Rogue," he rejoined plainly, "I ain't gonna hide it from you. I pulled some serious shit, and when I pull de serious shit it ain't for fuckin' dimes and quarters."

"If it was," Rogue countered in a low hiss, "Ah swear to God, you would not be alive right now! Ah would've stuck that syringe where the sun don't fuckin' shine and maimed yah where Ah know it _hurts_ you most for good measure!"

_That _was when he winced.

"And I woulda deserved it, Rogue," he rejoined, abashed. "I put your life on de line back there, and God in heaven knows it nearly killed me t' haveta do it." He raised his eyes to hers, and when he spoke again his voice was sombre. "You're de most precious t'ing I have, Rogue. And I gambled wit' de most precious t'ing I possess. Now you have an idea just how serious my reasons are for doin' what I did. It's complicated, _chere_. It deserves a lifetime's worth of honesty. And _here, now_, is definitely not de time or de place."

She was almost – _almost _– pacified to hear the earnestness in his tone.

"So this was never about Sinister then," she persisted heatedly, needing an answer, something to reassure her as to his intentions. "And it was never about bein' on the side of the angels or the demons either, was it? 'Cos all it ever boils down to is _one thing_ with you, Remy LeBeau. The only person whose side you're on is your _own damn self_."

And his expression went still then. He almost looked sad to hear her say it.

"No, _chere_," he answered softly, gravely. "I know _exactly_ whose side I'm on. _Yours_, Anna. _Always_."

He turned then, as if overcome with an emotion he couldn't bear to let her see, disappearing round the corner without another word; and whether she believed him or not, she had no choice – there was nothing for her to do but follow.

...

He had obviously planned this down to the very last detail beforehand. He moved ahead of her with tidy efficiency, taking out hidden cameras and dodging drones with the bare minimum of effort. Doors had been set to open automatically as he approached and the escape route had been cleared of personnel in advance.

Rogue followed, the clamour of her emotions outrun by the need to _get away_ from this place as fast as possible. She wasn't sure _what_ exactly Remy had been hoping to gain from regaining his Omega level powers, but she was satisfied, on some basic level, that he _was_ on her side, crazy as that seemed to her right now. At least, she was satisfied enough that he would get her out of here as fast as was humanly possible, and that was all she cared about at the moment. She could feel Sinister all around her in this place, prickling her skin and clawing behind every step she took. It was almost unbearable and she wished more than anything that Remy would pick up his pace.

"How long?" she panted after what seemed like forever, but must've only been a few minutes since their last conversation had ended. He was panting too when he replied.

"Dere's a shortcut just up here," he informed her, stopping as they came to a bulkhead door and letting the computers scan him. "We get through here, _chere_, we'll be out in about a minute."

"Shoulda known you'd had this all planned out ahead of time," she muttered as the system finally cleared him, and he gave a twitch of a smile.

"Yeah well… I've had a long time to think about dis," he answered, just as the door swept open.

And on the other side stood Logan.

There was a split second where they all stared at each other in confusion. Remy lifted his hands, said: "Logan…" but no sooner had the name come out than the older man had pounced forward with a feral growl, bowling right into Gambit and knocking him to the ground.

Rogue twisted out of their way just in time as Logan popped his claws with a sharp _snikt!_, driving his fist forward for the kill, just missing Remy's head by inches as he managed to lurch away to one side. The claws punched the titanium floor, sending cracks spiralling out several feet in all directions.

"Still weaslin' your way out of trouble, Gumbo?" Logan snarled, heaving his bruised fist out of the ground and pulling back for another strike; the bruises on his skin dwindled to nothing in the space of mere seconds. "Try dodgin' these!"

"Logan!" Rogue screamed, catching his wrist and holding it back with all the strength she could muster in that moment. "You mustn't! He's – he's been playin' Sinister!"

"Playin' Sinister?" Logan echoed in an incredulous bark. "You gotta be kiddin' me! He delivered you into that sick bastard's hands, and you expect me to believe you weren't hurt?!"

Rogue didn't have a chance to reply. Remy had taken her distraction as a window of opportunity; she only realised the fact that he had charged his own bare fist a second too late. It slammed into Logan's face with a fizzing sound rather than a crack. The force was so great that Logan went skimming to the other end of the corridor. Fast as thought Remy was back up as nimble and graceful as ever, dancing on his feet, shaking out both hands with a loud _crack_ of his knuckles.

"Go on, Logan, gimme another excuse," he panted with exhilaration; sparks were coming off of his fingers as he shook them out either side of him. "Gimme another excuse to kick the shit outta you!"

There was the hiss of sizzling flesh as Logan got to his feet again, an animal growl rumbling at the back of his throat. Half his face had been burned right off where Gambit's fist had struck it. Even as his healing factor knitted the damage back together Rogue could see the rage in him, pulsing through the vein at his temple, in the blood vessels that were slowly stitching themselves back together.

"I dunno what Sinister's done to you to give you this edge, bub," he scowled. "But I can tell you now it's gonna be a fuckin' waste of time. You're still gonna end up dead on the end of these claws!"

"_No!_" Rogue slammed both her palms into his chest, just as he was about to make good on his threat. "Logan, you gotta trust him! He was helpin' me to escape!"

"Let us fight it out, Rogue," Remy piped up behind her impatiently. "One of us will win."

"Yeah. Let's see how easy you fight back with these claws in you!" Logan raged, ready to meet the challenge; but Rogue pushed him back again.

"_Stop it!_" she shouted at them both.

"Don't worry, _chere_, I don't need to be face to face wit' him to beat him," Remy crowed gleefully. "I can kill him from here."

There was a high-pitched screeching sound and Rogue saw that Logan's hair was a mass of glowing pink light. For the first time since she could remember, Logan looked speechless.

"So, Logan?" Remy began with a dangerous lilt to his voice. "You t'ink your brain can heal itself if I make your head explode? I've always wanted to find out."

"_Dammit, Remy!_" Rogue shrieked at him. "_Stop this! Now!_"

"No, Rogue," he yelled back. "He's always wanted you, _dat's_ why he's always hated me! He can't stand de fact dat it's _me_ you wanted!"

There was a stunned silence from Logan, one that took him a full thirty seconds to recover from.

"You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me," he finally muttered disbelievingly. "You think I'm _jealous_ of a prick like you? Because I want _Rogue_? Sure I don't like your sorry ass, and sure I think Rogue could do about a hundred times better than you. But that's only 'cos she's like a kid sister to me and all I've ever wanted to do is protect her. Guess we ain't so different when it comes to _that_, Gumbo."

The silence that fell was deafening. Rogue held her breath, her senses filled with the high-pitched screech of Remy's charge. One second, two seconds passed. The rage fell from Gambit's face. A second later and the charge too had dissipated. For the second time in one day Rogue allowed herself to breathe.

"All right," Remy spoke quietly. "You wanna help Rogue, we need to get outta here. _Now_."

Logan shook his head.

"Not without Mystique."

Rogue glanced sharply at him.

"_Mystique_? What the hell is _she_ doin' here?"

"Goin' t' kill Sinister. Says she should've done it years ago. I was s'pposed to be helpin' her but the damn broad snuck off and I couldn't catch her scent…"

"_Merde_," Remy cut in; he was already halfway back down the corridor.

"_Remy!_" Rogue called after him, and he stopped and turned to her, still walking backwards as he did so.

"Logan, you really wanna protect Rogue, take her outta here right now and don't let her outta your sight till I come back!"

"Shit, Remy," she yelled at him, taking a step away from Logan towards him. "Yah think Ah'm gonna let you handle this all on your own?"

"_Chere_, if I don't stop Mystique in time, God knows what I could do to you. Stay wit' Logan, stay safe. I'll be back for you."

"Would anyone mind tellin' me what the _fuck_ is goin' on?" Logan quizzed, his tone starting to sound dangerously feral again; Rogue ignored him.

"Remy!" This time she jogged after him, and he stopped like he couldn't say no to her; she ran right up to him, and even if her feelings were too raw, too chaotic to allow her an embrace, she found herself grasping the front of his shirt as if clinging onto life itself. "What if you don't come back?" she blasted desperately at him, unable to even entertain the thought of losing him again, despite all the damaged ground that now lay between them. It was as if her reticence to touch him burned him to the core. Unable to deny himself the connection, he reached out and ran his fingers through her hair, over her cheek and her lips as if marking her in his mind for the very last time.

"Talk to Irene," he answered breathlessly. "She usually knows what to do. Or talk to de me in your head. You'll figure somet'ing out."

There wasn't time for more; she didn't have time to regret a final caress, a final kiss. Before she could get out a single protest he had turned and was gone.

-oOo-


	12. Done

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** **Warrior-princess1980 -** Yes, indeed! Remy, ruuuuun! ** SassC HiJinx** - It's so great to hear from you again, dear! You have no idea! I got such a kick reading your insightful comments! You were (are?) completely right about Remy, which makes me smile; and you might be closer than you think about Remy and Destiny working together... *zips up mouth* ;) **slightlyxjaded -** Heheheh, yes - it's been a while since I read _Seether_, but I am flattered you would even compare me to Randirogue's work. She's now an indie author now, did you know? Thank you so much for your wonderful review, dear! **FF2Addict** - I'm so glad you liked the portrayal of Remy's emotions so much - secretly I do like writing Remy best. ;) **RRL24 - **No, no, don't let Mystique get a shot at him... Noooooo! ;) **KitsuK8 - **I think Remy assumed exactly the same as you did - thankfully (or not) you were both wrong... :/ **Me Voila - **Thanks for your review again, dear friend. I never thought of it that way, but I guess that is a really big undercurrent to the story, and will continue to be so... **Remy'sRose -** Thrilled to have you on board, dear! And you are amazing me with your perceptive review right now... Can't say what you've got correct - I'm sure you'll find out soon enough! :D **Monday's Angel -** I'm so happy to have you back on board, dear Angel! :D And I can't believe how brave you were reading the first two stories before this one! I hope you enjoy the rest of the story, and its conclusion! :D

And thanks again to all my readers! Please do review and let me know what you think!

Special thanks to **jpraner **for being my lovely beta-reader, and to **randirogue **for suggesting the best thing ever, and making me write the final scene of this chapter. You both rock! x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART TWO : SINISTER_  
**

**(12) - Done -**

Raven Darkhölme marched down echoing corridors, already splattered with the blood of a dozen foes.

With Logan's help it had been easy enough to find a way in here, and considering the mood they had both been in, if Raven had been a lesser person she would have pitied the chances of anyone who came across them.

But Logan had been a means to an end. He always had been.

She'd had no intention of letting him get to Sinister.

Sinister was _hers_.

This wasn't just business anymore. It was personal. And if her beloved daughter was dead… Well then, it didn't make all that much difference, except that she would make sure Essex was mutilated so bad there would be no way to piece him back together again.

She gritted her teeth and passed another wide open bulkhead door. There'd been more of them the deeper she'd gone into this place, and she wasn't entirely sure why there was no security but she was past caring. It hardly mattered. What she was here for was Essex, and if there wasn't going to be any resistance, so much the better; even if, in her present mood, she was spoiling for a fight.

She rounded another corner, gripping the knife in her hand till her knuckles were taut and white. Her mind was a whirlpool of unappeased rancour, just skimming the surface of her tortured mind. She knew that _somehow_ Irene had betrayed her. It fed the fires of her rage almost as much as Rogue's predicament did. The fact that the depths of that betrayal were at present unknown to her made it worse. It made her question the better part of her life – the one part of her life that she had always considered the most nurturing, the most trustworthy, the most stable. She knew that Irene always acted for a _reason_. But for the first time, she began to question whether that reason wasn't just plain _wrong_.

And Raven _never_ questioned, because she was _never _wrong.

That she could have been wrong to entrust _everything_ to her lover gave her a strange new feeling. _Fear_. And the only way to deal with that was to lash out. With violence, with rage, with ruthless abandon.

She sensed Essex's lab before she saw it.

The hum of computers, the stench of antiseptic, the sudden drop in temperature.

She rounded another corner and found the door wide open.

She stepped in.

She stopped.

She saw what she had seen in Alamogordo all those years ago.

Row upon row of nameless mutants, Essex's collection, his museum of oddities, his bid for both the ultimate army and ultimate power. She knew it existed. Had always known. Irene had told her about it. Showed her the pictures in the Diaries. But here, standing in front of this carnival of horrors firsthand, knowing now just how many mutants he had gathered, how many Remy LeBeau had delivered into his hands… It sickened her. And there wasn't much that sickened her anymore.

Something bitter stuck in her throat. She half-turned and spat it out. She stepped over the threshold and walked over to what she guessed was the computer mainframe, the control panel that turned this whole thing off.

And when she walked up to it, she saw _him_ there. On his hands and knees, half his face swollen and bloody, scrabbling over a shattered test tube on the floor, its contents spilled and lost forever.

She halted. Whatever it was inside her pushed at the roof of her chest and lodged there.

"Essex," she spoke in that stone cold tenor.

He stopped as if shot. He stared up at her with those burning eyes, his face only slowly breaking into an ominous grin as he recognised her.

"Raven Darkhölme," he greeted her with mock civility. "My, my. It _has_ been a long time."

"Not long enough," she assured him, the coolness in her tone merely masking the white hot heat underneath. He showed his teeth to her, getting slowly to his feet. He looked a mess.

"I am afraid, Mystique, that I don't have much time for this," he informed her, brushing down the front of his coat brusquely; there was blood on it. "As you can see, I am currently rather…_indisposed_ at the moment."

She made no reply. His toying hardly interested her.

"Where is my daughter," she asked coldly instead.

A sneer curled Sinister's lips, all pretence of jocularity gone.

"Where else?" he answered in that voice as smooth and cold as ice. "Where else but with that ingrate thief?"

Raven clenched her teeth, grasped her knife tighter.

"What have you done to her?" she demanded, her voice coming out as a growl. "And if she's been harmed, so help me God, Essex…"

"_Please_," he cut her off disdainfully. "Spare me the grief of your righteous indignation, Raven. The girl has been as much a pawn to you as she would have been to _me_."

She was gripping the blade so tight that she could've sworn the hilt was cutting into her flesh…

"I _love_ that child," she hissed; but Essex merely laughed.

"Now, perhaps. But do not deny that for all the years you and that blind witch knew of her she was nothing more to you than a means to an end. People like her… That is all they _are_ and ever _will_ be. Pawns in the hands of destiny. It is the people like _us_ that take control of those pawns, that move the wheels of Fate. You, more than anyone, know this to be true. Do not mourn the loss of your daughter, Mystique. She has served you well. And she will serve _me_ well yet."

_That_ was what nudged open the floodgates. It was not his posturing, his thinly-veiled gibes. It was the _truth_ behind them.

The knowledge that she had loved Rogue, had nurtured her only to make recompense for the suffering she knew she would inflict on this beautiful child.

She advanced on him, the blood singing in her ears and pounding in her head, a guttural cry forming in her throat as she raised the knife to strike; but he did not dodge her, made no attempt to defend himself, and _that_ alone should have told her something; but she was past all reason, past all logic.

"_I'll kill you!_" she shrieked, and still he made no move as she plunged the knife into his shoulder; she slammed him down against the control panel, flipping switches and sending sparks flying; the sound of a hundred tanks draining, of a hundred doors hissing open flooded the room in a rumbling sibilance, and she clutched at his throat with her talons, ground the knife in and screamed:

"_Where is she, Essex? What did you do with my daughter!_"

There was no pain on his face, no fear… only that maddening smile, teeth like razor-sharp blades glinting in the half light.

"She is no daughter of yours, Raven," he spat up at her through that hyena-like grin; she twisted the knife in deeper, swearing she could taste his blood in her mouth, see it in her eyes…

"_Where is Rogue?!_"

And she knew it, she knew that there was _desperation_ in her words now, that she was giving it away… but she _had_ to know, if not for love then for the future of _everything_…

"It is too late, Raven," he spluttered derisively at her, still no shame, still no contrition, no fear… "She will _always_ be mine now."

Whatever sound came out of her mouth then, it was barely human. She wrenched the knife from his shoulder, raised her arm to strike once more—

And a hand caught her wrist, staying her with a tenuous strength.

"You don't need t' do dis, Mystique," came the voice of Remy LeBeau, low and urgent. "She's okay, Raven. She's okay."

She paused, without knowing quite why. Essex had gone quiet, his expression now closed, watchful. Waiting for something… And she darted a glance at the man who now stood beside her, the handsome face now lined with pain, with fear… with everything she needed to see on Essex's face but that wasn't.

"Why should I believe you?" she seethed at him, resisting the pressure of his grip on her arm, the knife longing to connect to flesh and sinew once more. "You lied to me. You told me you'd protect her. And yet you delivered her to this _fuck_!"

"It had to be done," he ground out, his voice taut as a bowstring. "And you _know_ dat some t'ings _have_ t' be done, Mystique, however bad they are. But she's okay now. Anna's okay. I gave her to Logan. She'll be safe, Mystique. I promise you."

His breath was coming hard and fast, like he could barely get one exhalation out over the other. It was the first time she'd seen it. He was scared. He was pleading with her. He was giving it up to her. All the power he'd ever had over her and flaunted in her face.

And she laughed. She laughed to see how pathetic he truly was.

"You are a fool, LeBeau," she sneered at him, turning aside, her eyes catching Sinister's again, those burning eyes dark and hooded as a viper's, watching, watching… "You are a fool to think that I would ever be taken in by your silver tongue. You have done _nothing_ but lie, cheat and steal from me. The only thing I've had to regret in this life is that destiny _impelled_ Rogue to you again and again. She is worth a thousand of you, a thousand of Essex."

She yanked her hand from his grasp, poising the knife to strike once more; but his hands snapped over her wrist again, and she felt the finest of tremors in his grip; she saw the panic plain and undisguised on his face.

"_Non_," he shot at her, hoarsely, desperately. "I'm beggin' you, Raven. Don't do dis. You don't understand what it'll do!"

Whatever it was – the sharpness of his anxiety, the imminence of her victory, the hatred driving through her – it incensed her all the more. She growled at him like a wild thing.

"I understand exactly what it will do, LeBeau! Ridding this world of you and Essex will finally free my daughter of _everything_ that has hurt her in this world! She will never _truly_ be safe until the two of you are dead and buried! If you cared for her, you would _never_ have forced my hand like this, LeBeau! You would never have _dared!_"

She tried to jerk her hand away from his, but this time his grip was too tight. The display of strength amazed her. When she looked back to his face it was full of anguish.

"I dared b'cause I love her, Raven," he breathed in that broken voice. "I did it b'cause I _love_ her, godammit!"

And she hesitated.

She hesitated because she could hear it in his voice.

He was telling the truth.

For the very first time.

She almost dropped the knife. Almost let him have this moment, her mercy, her pity. She almost let him have whatever reckless gamble he thought this was. She almost let him have this love that she despised more than anything.

And then Essex laughed. A low, mocking chuckle that she felt between her fingers, the fingers that were still locked around his throat.

The sound slammed her back into herself, into the red hot volcano that was heaving away deep in the centre of her stone cold heart.

Quick as a lunging snake she snatched back her hand, swung the knife in Gambit's direction. The blade caught his chest, gouging a deep flesh wound to his breast but nothing more. He staggered backward, stunned; and in that very same movement she raised the knife up high, swung it back downward in a perfect arc, hearing Gambit scream "_No!_" in the background… And right on the tail-end of his scream the blade ripped into the side of Essex's throat, rupturing the voicebox, cutting off his scornful laugh, and it wasn't enough to silence him, it wasn't enough for her to _end_ it – it had to be all or nothing, it had to be the cool, cold satisfaction of the kill or she could never face the world again without shame…

It was what all three of them did.

Killed without shame, without remorse. Without feeling. Nothing personal. Just business. Just what _has _to be done.

She dug the knife in. Yanked at it like a butcher slaughtering a pig, severing cartilage, carotid, oesophagus, sinew, skin. Essex's throat erupted with blood, spraying her face, her body; and she didn't stop until there was nothing left to destroy, until she'd sawn clean through him and even the echo of his laughter had gone.

So ended Essex.

Beside her, Gambit dropped to his knees like a stone, retching like this was actually affecting him, like he actually _felt_ something for the monster.

Raven tossed aside the still-twitching body of Essex; he rolled off the edge of the control panel in a welter of blood. When she turned back to Gambit he was on his hands and knees, still choking. She caught his shoulder with her boot heel, kicked him onto his back. He made no attempt to resist, not even when she lifted a foot and planted it squarely on his chest. He stared up at her, almost without comprehension, his pupils dilated, spittle flecking his mouth. She looked down on him, contemptuous pity, Essex's blood dripping onto him from her face, her chest, her hands, like some demonic rain.

"Kill me…" he rasped, and she smiled down at him coldly, at the fact that for the first time she had truly bested him.

"For once you get to keep your sorry life, LeBeau," she proclaimed with the cool and driving judgement of a Fury. "You say you love my daughter. I believe you."

She dropped the knife; it clanged to the floor beside him.

"Don't worry, LeBeau," she continued unsmilingly. "I've done you a favour, after all. I've rid Rogue of this monster – and I've rid _you_ of him too. Let's be brutally honest, shall we? You'd never have been able to keep Rogue, not whilst _he_ wanted her. And if Rogue is still fool enough to decide she wants you now, I'd rather she didn't have to be with you looking over her shoulder every day, knowing Essex is right there behind her. Would you?"

There was no answer. He barely appeared to have heard her.

Raven sneered.

She lifted her foot, thought about changing her mind. It would be easy to kill him. Easy to rid Rogue of him forever.

But something stayed her hand.

It was the knowledge that her daughter loved this miserable excuse for humanity more than herself, more than life itself.

So she turned away.

She went to the computer console and shut it down for the very last time.

She left, leaving Essex's collection with the hardest decision they would ever have to make in their sad, sorry lives.

Whether to hide from a world that hated them, or whether to walk free and move on.

-oOo-

Hours seemed to pass. There wasn't a single sign of Remy, nor of Mystique.

Rogue sat on her bed with the fear growing in her every minute. She'd hardly registered anything else since returning with Logan back to base. She sent him text after text, knowing he wouldn't reply to them. Logan sat and watched her most of the time, mostly silently and patiently. Other times he would pace the room as if her anxiety infected him.

"We shoulda stayed," he muttered half to himself at one point. "We shoulda _helped_ somehow."

She had explained everything to him on the way back and long after they'd arrived back here. It'd taken that long. The thing was, she was starting to wish she hadn't. She wasn't sure he really _got_ a hundred percent what was going on.

"No," she rejoined wearily, decidedly. "Remy was right. If we'd been too late, you wouldn't have been able to stop him. He's too powerful."

"I woulda _killed_ him," Logan growled.

"_No_." This time there was no trace of weariness in her voice. "He would've killed you first. You _saw_ what he's capable of, Logan…"

The sound of doors opening and slamming nearby made them both start. Rogue was up and out the door before Logan even had a chance to get to it. He followed her out, barely managing to match her step as she raced down the corridors and out to the hallway.

Mystique was standing there.

She was covered in blood.

Rogue came to a halt in the doorway, her mouth open with horror.

"Remy…?" she began, not knowing how to formulate the question pushing at her lips, drowned out by the horrible, all-consuming fear of what she knew must be true. Mystique started, gazed at Rogue as though she hardly recognised her.

"Sinister's dead," she stated in a deadpan voice, just as Logan came up behind Rogue.

"Tell me you didn't just say that," he intoned gruffly. Her smile was frighteningly cold. She upturned her palms and showed the blood on them with an icy pride.

"It was something I should've done long ago," she spoke with the self-assurance of the righteous. "It was something I should've done the moment Destiny saw what he had in mind for the mutant species, for _you_, Rogue. She held me back. And like a fool, I obeyed. This was just the righting of a wrong I made nearly thirty long years ago."

"And Remy?" Rogue asked in a hoarse voice, not caring about whatever whys or wherefores Raven had concocted for herself. Mystique turned her eyes icily onto her.

"I finally save you from the threat Sinister has posed to you _all your life_, and the only thing you can ask me about is that treacherous _snake_?"

"Where is he?" she pleaded, trying not to give into the very real fear that his blood was also on Mystique.

"I left him in Essex's base," she finally retorted, her eyes flashing with barely concealed disgust. "Be thankful I didn't kill him, Rogue, that I let him go free."

Her sentence was cut short by a bitter cry suddenly emanating from Rogue's lips. Raven's gaze was frosty.

"Although I would've been doing you a favour, if I _had_ killed him. Just as I've done you a favour by ridding you of that wretched man. You have no idea what he planned for you."

"No, momma," she shook her head, trying to stop herself from wailing out loud. "_You _have no idea what you've _done_."

And she turned and fled from the room with only one destination in mind.

Destiny.

-oOo-

She found her in one of the guest rooms, sitting on the edge of the bed with one of the Diaries open on her lap. She neither moved nor looked up when Rogue stormed through the door, trembling with an emotion so visceral she felt sure Irene could feel it in the air.

Rogue slammed the door shut behind her, knowing that her foster mother had been expecting her, knowing too that she was fighting between a despair and a rage so deep and terrifying that she was in danger of completely losing her shit. Hell, maybe she _had_ already lost it. She wasn't sure anymore. She gulped in a breath and almost choked on it. There was bile in her throat, ice searing through her lungs.

"What do Ah do!" she shot out desperately. "What do Ah _do_, Irene?"

And the little old woman looked at her, sightless and unseeing.

"What you have _always_ done, my child."

She nearly lost it then. Completely. The world careened like a carousel, white stars danced in front of her eyes. It took a supreme effort of will to stop herself from screaming out loud and driving her fist into the door.

"_Remy is dyin' and Ah need t' stop it from happenin' and so help me Lord if you don't help me Irene Ah will _kill_ you…_"

The words spilled out in a fiery torrent wavering with anger and torment, and she trailed off, teeth grit, fists bunched, chest heaving, battling with the unholy desire to make good on her threats…

Irene's mouth went thin.

"I admire your heart, my dear," she spoke quietly, gravely. "I admire your spirit. But Remy LeBeau is _not_ dying, and you have little to gain in doing away with me. I must beg you to remain calm."

The buzzing in her ears was amplifying to a crescendo of white noise. She felt it pushing at her chest like a volcano about to burst.

"_Calm?_" she screamed. "_Calm?!_"

She was past all reason. She strode over to the statue-like figure of her foster-mother, snatched the book from her lap and gripped it between both hands as if bent on tearing it apart. To attempt to would have been useless – the tome was too thick, too solid, too heavy.

"Ah _hate_ you!" she shrieked, to everything, to nothing. "_Ah hate you!_"

She flung the book at the wall, and it struck it with a sharp _thunk_ before tumbling gracelessly to the floor, its opened pages revealing a double page spread coloured in violent reds and yellows and oranges. Rogue froze, stared. She stepped towards it, fell to her knees. She ran her hand over the creased pages with her mouth open in a wordless scream of agony.

In the picture, the city was on fire.

And _he_ – Remy – was in the middle of it.

She could not tell how many minutes passed before any words could leave her mouth.

"Ah've done everythin' you've told me t' do," she stammered, realising for the first time that tears were coursing down her cheeks. "Even when Ah doubted you, Ah did it. But it hasn't made any difference. It hasn't _solved_ anythin'. Is this _really_ what you wanted to happen? _This?_" And her hand trembled on the image before her, as if to touch it was to make it real, to acknowledge its veracity. "How could you, momma? How could you lead me to this one thing, this one _man_ that means so much to me, and then take it all away? Why did you bring us together when it has to end like _this?_"

The silence was like a black hole, an all-encompassing void after the ringing that had screamed through her ears. It was a long while before Irene replied.

"I did not _cause_ this," she insisted; and Rogue had to forcefully grit her teeth in order to bite down another surge of rage.

"Don't lie to me," she hissed in disgust. "Logan told me the truth. Kate Pryde _saw _it when Rachel sent her back in time. _You_ killed Senator Kelly. _You_ murdered him with your bare hands. You can't sit there and _tell_ me that you had nothin' to do with this. Yah _can't_."

Another pause; Irene's reply was low.

"I did only what has _always_ been."

Rogue shook her head bitterly.

"No. We _always_ have a choice. _You_ taught me that. And _you_ made a choice that brought us to this point. Where mutants are oppressed, where Rachel's gone, where Ah had to sell mahself, where Remy has to suffer like _this_. Why did you make that choice, Irene? Ah have to know _why_."

No answer. Presently she heard Irene stand, walk over to her. She knelt down beside Rogue and reached for the book. Rogue removed her hand, allowed the older woman to turn away from the page that spelled out to her, so loud and clear and painful, what Remy was capable of; what he was _destined_ to do. She watched as the image disappeared and Irene turned to the very end of the book. To the image of the Phoenix that Rogue had seen what seemed like a lifetime ago.

She stared at it, a chill comprehension descending over her, a truth she could not begin to fathom.

"_The end purpose…_" she whispered, and Irene nodded.

"Yes."

Rogue bit her lip.

"Yah told me that before. But Ah don't understand what any of this has got to do with _that_…"

Irene sighed as if she had expected such a response. She stood, crossed the room, her cane rapping neatly across the floor. For a full minute Rogue counted out the disjointed rhythm of her steps until they came to a halt.

"There was once a child," Destiny spoke at last, her voice dream-like yet not without a trace of weariness, "a child who was sickly and lonely and had strange fancies. She was alone. She was afraid of _being _alone."

Rogue heard the thread of bitter nostalgia in the old woman's voice. She looked over her shoulder slightly, seeing Irene facing the mirror, knowing that what she saw there was not what _was_ there, but a mirage of it, a mirage of moments flickering like candlelight, possible futures blurring, layer upon layer, on the glass surface, jostling for realisation, for the right to _be_.

"One day that child found a friend," Irene continued quietly. "A friend that hadn't even been born yet. A little girl just like her, lonely and confused and carrying a great burden. The two of them grew up together. And the child found out that her friend was special. Very special indeed. She _wasn't _just a little girl. She was something bigger. Something amazing. Something frightening and wonderful. She was _everything_. When the _end_ was to come, she would be there. She would turn the _end_ round on itself. She would give us all a second chance."

The woman fell silent. Rogue struggled with it. The words. The images. And then she realised she didn't have to struggle with it. She'd _seen_ it before. She'd seen it in the very moment she had first absorbed Irene Adler.

"The Phoenix," she murmured. Irene's reflection smiled sadly.

"The child realised that things would not be easy for her friend," she resumed softly. "That so much more than this world hung in the balance if her friend did not reach her potential. She also knew she was the only one who possessed this gift – this _curse_ – to see what her friend was truly capable of. That the _whole_ of existence lay in the palm of her hands."

She paused, opened up her free hand, stared into it as though to read her own future in its roughly hewn lines.

"She made a decision," Irene spoke again on a light breath. "She promised herself that she would help her friend reach that final destination. She never realised at the time just how arduous her task was to be. It led her to bitterness and madness and brutal sacrifice. But she never faltered. Stumbled, perhaps, now and again. But she kept her path. And she still does, to this very day."

She turned to Rogue then, her lined face grim. Almost a challenge. Rogue stared up at her, making the only conclusion she could.

"So… you're tellin' me… That you killed Senator Kelly… to _lead_ the Phoenix to this _end purpose_?"

There was no expression of triumph on the woman's face.

"At last you understand," she said in that same grave tone.

Rogue looked aside. She touched the old, worn paper of the Diary before her and fought with the need to _look_. To see where this was all leading. She knew, with a crawling helplessness, that Irene was committed to this. That whatever path Remy was on, it was the path Irene _intended_ him to be on. It didn't make sense. She didn't understand how _any_ of this could lead to anything good, but she had to trust that whatever Irene had planned, it was exactly for that. The _greater_ good.

"There has to be a way," she murmured desperately. "There _has_ to be a way to stop all this…"

And she knew Irene's answer before she heard it.

"No."

She couldn't believe it.

"Ah'm goin' to lose him…" she whispered. "Momma, don't you see? Ah'm gonna lose him…"

"You were willing to kill him once," Irene spoke up from the sidelines, the words all at once cold yet curious. "You were willing to kill him for _this_."

Rogue touched the paper again, ran her fingers over the image of the Phoenix, the thing that was supposed to take all this pain and suffering away, and yet who was taking away from her the only thing that gave her reason to continue on this lonely journey called life.

"Somethin' changed, momma," she stumbled over the words, her voice wavering as she struggled with all the heartache, all the betrayal of the past few days. "It changed. Ah – Ah _loved _him. And he loved me back."

She looked back over her shoulder at her foster mother, her mouth twisting bitterly. "Is that all it was, momma? Just a means to an end?"

And Irene was as still as a statue, her body as taut as bamboo.

"No," she replied with just a thread of sadness in her voice. "Never that, my dear. Looking at all the strands of Time, Time that was and is and is yet to be… the two of you choose one another. Over and over again. And I… I simply took what already was. I took what already _is_. I took the choices you both made, and I forged the future with them. And you will save him, Rogue. You will save him, not because I have had a hand in making it so, but because it is _what you do_. _Always_."

She walked over to Rogue again, picked up the book. She moved to the bed with the air of holding a sacred relic, sat down slowly, and laid it carefully, lovingly, on her lap. She placed her hands on the cover and Rogue could not tell whether her blind eyes were open or closed behind the rose-tinted shades.

Nothing more was said.

After a pregnant silence, Rogue stood up and left.

-oOo-

Remy.

Remy LeBeau.

It's his name, isn't it?

He lies on his back and stares up at the halogen lights of Sinister's lab. They burn into his retinas, his skull; but darkness gathers behind his eyes, shutting out the hurt, cutting off the pain. He touches the bloody wound at his breast – but he's stopped feeling it a while ago. The only thing that hurts is the wound of this betrayal, a betrayal so deep it rends him to the core.

Because he has been tricked.

By rights he should be dead. Raven should have killed him where he stood.

But Fate has cheated him again.

And so it should all be over now. If you can't steal from Fate you throw down your cards. You walk away from the table. You bow out gracefully.

This isn't graceful.

It's ugly and it hurts.

He reaches out a bloodied hand and his fingers find the hilt of Mystique's knife. He thinks of Rogue. He thinks of everything he's sacrificed for her. This is just another thing. Another thing to give up to her. His life for her own. It's always been like this. He's always just been too blind to see it.

Because he won't hurt her.

He won't be tricked into this thing the Diaries say he must do.

He loves her.

He loves her more than his life, more than the texture of those empty days spent hustling and cajoling and seducing and fucking and getting high. He loves her more than the sum and total of all those wasted days, and as he raises the knife to his breast he thinks that there is nothing more fitting he can give her than her own life and his own end.

The blade of the knife glints in the light.

And something stays his hand.

Because he doesn't _want_ to kill her.

He never has.

Kill Rogue?

What purpose would that serve?

He still wants her.

He still needs her.

_Just a little sample, is all._

_ Then I can get rid of her._

No.

_No_.

Think about it.

Think about what we can make _together_.

The two of us and our own little (_grand_) experiment.

_I always thought it would be interesting to see what Nature would come up with putting these two together… putting her and me together… putting Omega and Omega together… putting the two of us together … Omega and Omega… Together…_

Just like Scott Summers and Jean Grey… …

His grip slackens.

I don't want to kill her.

I never did.

_What made me think I ever did?_

It isn't just about love.

_(Pointless distraction)._

She can make me _stronger_.

She can make me _better_.

_(She can _make_ me…)_

Together, unstoppable.

Cold, hard fact.

Logic.

She won't say no. She loves me. She'll do anything I want. I'll do anything _she_ wants.

_(Within reason)._

And what if she says no?

Well, she won't say no.

She never does. Not to me. She'll come to me. She'll try and stop me first. But she'll see. She'll see what we can be together. She's always wanted it. I'll _give _it to her. I'll tell her I was blind before. I _was_ blind before. I see it now. I see what we can be. I see what we can make. The new world order. The death of the Sentinels. The fall of _homo sapiens_. The advent of _homo superior_.

And her and me, standing at the apex of it all.

The knife clatters to the floor. He walks from his lab dripping a snake-like trail of blood behind him. He neither sees nor feels it.

He is Remy LeBeau and yet he is so much more.

He is a man who has lost and gained _everything_.

And he walks towards it.

He walks towards a page in a diary he has been running to and from his entire life.

-oOo-

- END OF PART TWO -


	13. The Loss

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** **slightlyxjaded - **Yes, I did hear about the whole Channing Tatum as Gambit thing, and all I can say is, "No... Just... no." Another X-film I won't be watching, I guess. Anyway, I'm so glad you liked the chapter, especially Mystique's characterisation. One day I'd like to write some vignettes about her past with Destiny and Sinister. Hopefully I'll get the time! Thanks also for reviewing _22 Drabbles, _I really appreciate it, dear! :) **Me Voila -** Yes, I have a certain fascination with books within books as well. I hope the Phoenix's role to play in the story becomes clearer later on, but it might be a while yet... ;) **Nikki199 -** So happy to see you again, my dear! And may I say - CONGRATULATIONS on your forthcoming nuptials! And continued good luck with grad school - I feel your pain there! Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read and review, I love to read your thoughts! :) **FF2Addict** - Thanks for the lovely review, dear! Although Remy's feelings for Rogue are pretty much up for debate at this point, seeing as part of him is now Sinister... :( **Remy'sRose -** Glad to keep your spirits up after a bad day at work! Hope this chapter does the same... maybe not... :p Hopefully soon it will be revealed just how much Sinister is a part of Remy now... *bites nails* **KitsuK8**** - **Not much Remy in this chapter, but the next one and the one after should answer most of your questions... ;) **RRL24 -** Heheheh, yes, _Threads_ does figure into this story in more ways than one - thanks for noticing! :) Destiny did give a lot of her motivations away in the previous chapter, but it remains to be seen just how much of them are down to pure madness or not. **SinfulVamp -** I'm glad you're enjoying things so far! I guess fanfiction - whether writing or reading - is just our way of dealing with the fact that the comics producers are ignoring us... :/ **Spasticatt_ -_**Hello, lovely lady, welcome back! Hope you enjoy this one! :D x

And many more thanks and love goes to **CeilidhStewart,** **Warrior-princess1980**, my lovely betas and all my dear readers! Please continue to read and enjoy, and please tell me what you think with your reviews - I learn so much about my own writing from your thoughts!

Much love,

-Ludi x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART THREE : ROGUE_  
**

**(13) - The Loss -**

Nothing but a sleepless night beckoned Rogue, and she lay on her back and stared at up at the darkness, the hours tunnelling, meaningless; the tides of sleep washing against her yet failing to draw her in. The tumult of her thoughts was so chaotic that they hardly seemed to touch her at all. She lay in some vast space between waking and unconsciousness, switching off every sense in the way Raven had once taught her to.

And still he did not come.

Of course he didn't.

She knew he wouldn't.

And though her resentment of him and everything he'd done to her still smarted, the horror of what she knew he must be going through scorched her like a raw flame.

And so she chose not to face it.

She didn't even dare find refuge in the sanctuary of her mind.

It was safer to be in the silence, in the darkness – no words, no sounds, no faces to trace, to hold, to wish for, to tell her that this was _real_.

She hid in the silence of the night the way she'd done when she'd first woken into this cold, dead world so many years before. Six months in a coma that had sheltered her from a world falling apart. Six blessed months of nothingness that she now craved more than anything… …

… …Hours passed, and she couldn't tell whether she'd slept or not, but when she turned to her alarm clock and hit the light switch she saw the time flash 05:57. The room was temporarily lit up with an eerie blue glow that winked out all too soon, shrouding her once more in darkness. The spell was broken. There was no shielding herself from this reality now.

She punched on the low-light lamp and sat up.

She chanced a thought of _him_ – cautious, tentative – and her stomach lurched sickeningly.

_It still hurts, it's still too raw, lie back down, girl, shut it all off…_

She couldn't. She had to _do_ something.

She rubbed her aching eyes and slid off the bed, pulled a sweater over her head. When she stepped outside her room the corridor was empty except for a single light that had been left on near the Rec Room. She shuffled in that direction, pausing momentarily outside the room Irene was sharing with Mystique. The old woman's face still haunted her, that expression more etched and lined than she had ever remembered it; and she wondered whether Irene was sleeping now, or whether she, too, was trying to hide in the darkness, trying to hide from all the pointless and painful machinations she had wrought.

To stand there and dwell on it would have been futile, and so Rogue moved on.

Logan was in the Rec Room, watching the TV from a battered chair with the volume down, a can of beer in his hand. Not a word was said between them. Rogue leant against the back of the sofa, followed his gaze. It was the 24 hour news channel.

"You're waitin' to see what he does, aren'tcha," she murmured after a moment, and he grunted, not even looking at her as he took a swig of beer.

"Only a matter of time, stripes."

She pulled at her lip with her teeth. His voice had been hoarse, lined with less bravado than she would've liked. He'd seen back at Sinister's compound what Remy was now capable of. This wasn't sport to him. This wasn't just the equivalent of him sitting out listening to police scanners so he could join in on the fun. This was him preparing for the worst. This was him being so anxious that he hadn't slept either.

"So what're you gonna do?" she half-whispered; he took another swig of beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Whatever it takes to keep this fuckin' place in one piece," he answered gruffly, and she chose not to analyse the statement. He knew as well as she did that when and if he came up against Gambit again, he didn't stand much of a chance. And he'd _always_ stood a chance. That was why he wasn't going to go down without a fight – because countless years of _winning_ had taught him never to back down. Even when you've clearly been bested.

"Logan, you ain't gonna _hurt_ him…" she began, faltering when she realised that that was _exactly_ what he planned to do if it came to it.

"Don't ask me to promise you a thing, Rogue," he retorted hotly, "cos – unlike your _boyfriend_ – I don't go round makin' promises I can't keep."

The look – and the silence – she gave him in reply spoke louder than words. So loudly that it got his attention. He glanced over at her and found he couldn't look away. His eyes widened, first with surprise, then with something that was almost like contempt.

"Don't you gimme that look, Rogue," he growled. "I know how you feel 'bout that boy, but I ain't about to forgive him for all the shit he's put you through. And _don't_ you dare fuckin' tell me he was playin' Sinister the whole time," he cut in when she opened her mouth to reply. "I _know_ what he planned. And you know what? What he did _still_ coulda got you killed. He sure as hell got _himself_ into a shit load'a trouble. So he throws a decent roll of the dice, I'll give 'im that. But his damage control fuckin' sucks, and I don't like the way he gets so trigger happy putting your life on the line."

It was said almost breathlessly, and Rogue found she was almost taken aback by the vehemence in his words.

"Ah trust him," she murmured after a moment, and he snorted.

"Even now? Even knowing what he probably _is_ now?"

"Whatever he is now, Ah don't believe, deep down, that he'd really _want_ to hurt me," she muttered, and Logan couldn't help but burst out: "And yet he just _let_ you get hurt by Sinister over and over not even a goddamn day ago! Jesus Christ, Rogue, can't you see that all he does is _take_ from you? Don't you _get_ that you deserve better?"

The words were so impassioned that for a brief moment they were both stunned into silence; and the expression he gave her in those few short seconds was one she'd never seen before, one that she could put no name to. Before either of them could acknowledge it, however, they were interrupted by a deep rumble as of faraway thunder; the room shook so suddenly and violently that the door to the Rec Room opened itself and several of the light fixtures swayed precariously. Before the apparent earthquake had even petered out Logan had swung back round and was jamming up the volume, flipping through channels at breakneck speed.

"What the hell _was_ that?" Rogue ventured nervously, but he didn't even look at her, barely opened his mouth as he replied through gritted teeth: "_Sentinels_."

"What? No… Sentinels don't _sound_ like _that_ when they're walkin'…"

"Not walkin', stripes," he snarled. "_Fallin'_."

She held a disbelieving breath as she realised what he meant, just as Jubilee came sprinting through the open door with her hair wild and her clothes in disarray.

"Did you hear that?" she shot at them as first Pyro then Avalanche followed her into the room. "What the hell _was_ it?"

"Back to bed, _now_!" Logan barked at her in reply, which, to her credit, she completely ignored.

"I wasn't _in_ bed!" she snapped at him. "I was in the med bay looking after Emma and Ev and Betts when the room started shaking and disconnected some of the drips… Forge's in there fixing them up again… What the _hell_ is going _on_?"

The tautness of Logan's jaw, the wildness of his eyes as he glared at the TV made them all pause and follow his gaze. CNN had just sent a news chopper out over New York, and the first taste of a panoramic early-morning shot of the grey and crumbling skyscrapers filled the screen, a bird's eye view of the city that had long become their prison and their tomb filling them with an odd disquiet. And there it was. Smoke, heaving, bellowing from an indeterminate point in the sprawling urban jungle, a single charred metal arm wreathed limply over the roof of an apartment building. A Sentinel's arm. It's owner destroyed, spewing flames.

The only word Rogue heard over the fearful babble of the news reporter was Logan's barely concealed curse. No one else dared say a word. Not even Raven, who'd quietly slid into the room behind the others, her face pale and hard.

"_No terrorist organisation has, as yet, accepted responsibility for the destruction of this Sentinel_," the reporter was excitedly saying on-screen, "_nor, indeed, do we know how such a feat was achieved. But it would seem there is little doubt that mutants are indeed to blame. And now we have reports that the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask, has been ordered to send more of his machines to the scene of this devastation…_"

The camera panned out, and, true enough, four, five, six other Sentinels came into view from all directions, converging steadily on their fallen comrade. Not five seconds later, the room was once again rocked by an overground explosion, this one nearer than before. Another five seconds passed before the source became evident on the TV screen. Another of the Sentinels seemed to have spontaneously combusted, exploding in an unprovoked fireball of flames and smoke and shrapnel. Logan didn't waste another moment. This second destruction had hardly unfolded when he'd shot out the room, almost bowling Forge over upon his exit.

"Logan… Wait!" Rogue yelled, following him out into the corridor and pushing past the others even as they began to talk all at once, one over another, trying to explain what they had just seen to themselves as much as to Forge. Rogue ignored them. She sprinted out into the passageway, skidding round the corner just in time to see Logan grab his leather jacket and shrug it on.

"You're not goin' up there?" she shouted at him, and he shot her an exasperated look.

"Whaddaya think, Rogue? People are gonna be dyin' up there!"

He turned abruptly, storming towards the exit elevator, stark purpose in his stride, knowing she would follow; and she did, not because she had to, but because she was an X-Man and people needed her. She was almost surprised when the others followed – whether for the same reasons as herself or just to enjoy the spectacle, she wasn't sure – although she was fairly certain that none of them could quite believe that what they had witnessed on the news report was _real._ Let alone the work of one man.

Of Gambit.

Of _Remy_.

She gritted her teeth and picked up her pace, hot on Logan's tail.

The elevator ride was quiet, painful, a thrumming space of baited breath, and she caught eyes on her – Logan's, stern yet oddly pained; Raven's, calm and piercing. She avoided both. When the lift came to a halt she strode to the door first, feeling those eyes bore into her head and her neck and her back, and she felt impelled, whether from the weight of their seeming judgement or her own inner dread, to move forward, to take the lead.

The doors slid upon.

And Rogue being Rogue, she stepped up.

Acrid smoke and screams permeated the air; a lone man ran past her, panting, quickly followed by another; she swivelled in the direction they had come from, towards the main street – saw others running, panicked. She hesitated, not quite believing her senses – first Logan pushed past her, then Mystique – finding the movement in her legs again, she followed.

The streets were heaving, a cacophony of screams and cries and shouts, a tidal wave of agitated, gesticulating bodies. As soon as she stepped onto the sidewalk she was jostled about, very nearly swept away – a man ran into her headfirst, grabbed her by the arms, shouting incoherently – she pushed him away from her, cleaved forward through the crowd once more. Another man came her way, calm, measured – this time he reached for her with a grasp that was all too familiar, and without thinking she'd launched her fist into the side of his face, feeling his jaw crack beneath the raw drive of her knuckles; and he hit the sidewalk with a satisfying slap.

Rogue paused, breathless. The least sign of chaos and all sorts of trouble started worming its way out of the woodwork. Looters, rioters, conmen, pickpockets – Logan was right – give 'em an inch and they'd take a mile. But she didn't have time to take down the thugs. Not here, not now. Not when Remy was…

She held the thought, turned and saw Raven nearby. Without a second thought she plunged forward to join her, fighting against the current of people fleeing from a scene she couldn't see yet but could smell.

It was the stench of burning, the caustic, bitter reek of singed wiring, smoke and metal – pungent indoors, overpowering now that she was out in the street. The taste of it was like acid on her tongue; she resisted the urge to spit it out.

She followed as Raven weaved in and out of the crowds, some hurrying along in a state of extreme agitation, some gathered in small pockets talking amongst themselves. There were worried voices, scared voices, confused voices, angry voices. Words assailed her ears through the furious tumult, the scrambling for sense on the one hand and escape on the other. _Mutie, attack, kill, revenge, payback._ It was the words – more than the smells, more than the wild pandemonium – that scared her. She caught up with Raven just as they were about to turn a corner; the crowd cleared a little and she saw Logan a little ahead and to her right; Jubilee too. As to the others, she had no idea where they were.

Raven shot Rogue a look over her shoulder, a look that Rogue found impossible to read; they rounded the corner together and stopped dead in their tracks.

The entire length of the road, and most of its width, was filled with the hulking mass of what Rogue recognised, after a short moment, to be a Sentinel. It lay there, facedown, blackened, charred, its limbs bent and broken from its fall, still smouldering in places, its circuitry sparking in others. The grotesquely amorphous features of its skull were twisted and warped in the heat of what had been an intense fire. The sockets of its eyes were nothing more than gaping holes, the line of its mouth a melted mass of tar-like substance. It seemed to stare at Rogue with an almost human expression of abject terror, the countenance of one in its final death throes, clinging desperately to life.

No one made a sound. There was no dirge to be sung for something so hated. Not even the statics had stayed to mourn at the grave of the beast.

"_Holy shit!_"

She turned slightly and saw St. John, Dom, Forge standing a little way behind them, aghast.

"What the _fuck_ did that?!" Dom asked the question that everyone was thinking.

Rogue looked back at it. The smouldering remains of the giant, a husk of plastic casings, fibre optics and titanium. A million dollars' worth of killing machine reduced to nothing more than a skeleton. It was awesome, terrible and frightening to comprehend Avalanche's question.

"Remy," she spoke mostly to herself. "It was Remy."

"You've gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me," St. John interjected with an excess of sarcasm. "Gambit ain't capable of shit like that."

"He is now," Raven returned in a tight voice. She turned, glanced at him askance with a grim expression.

"Holy crapola," Jubilee muttered under her breath, and, "Strewth," Pyro added.

"How is that even possible?" Forge cut in above the both of them. "He'd need to be in physical contact with something for several minutes to charge something that big. _Keeping_ the charge going for that long, on all that mass… it would take an inhuman effort of will. We're talking Phoenix power levels here…"

"Omega level powers?" Logan finished for him, half statement, half question.

"Yes," Forge conceded.

Rogue didn't speak. She couldn't find it in herself to explain all this. She could barely formulate a thought at all.

"Remarkable," Raven broke out in a tone of wonder, a begrudging admiration dancing in her eyes as she took in the devastation before her. "He has single-handedly managed to achieve what the Brotherhood has not in nearly ten long years – no – longer. Essex was right. He could create a masterpiece of _homo superior_, the most perfect expression of our kind possible. And he _did_."

Rogue shook her head, her voice finally coming back to her.

"He created a _monster_."

Raven looked at her coldly.

"A monster, yes. But perhaps that is what we are meant to _be_."

"Somethin' that can destroy a whole city?" Logan scoffed without a trace of humour or wit. His expression was closed, watchful. "If _that's_ what we're meant to be, Mystique, there won't be a world _left _for us to rule."

"There will be laws, Wolverine," Raven countered calmly. "It is not my intention to accept a world where petty power struggles are rife."

Wolverine's smirk was merciless.

"Sounds good, Raven – for those in power like you. And I'd sure as hell like t' know how you expect to rein in someone who can bring a Sentinel down with a thought."

Whatever answer Raven might have made was interrupted by the thundering boom of another explosion several blocks away, closely followed by a chorus of yet more screams, cries of dismay and shouts of outrage. And then the implausibly loud screech of creaking metal, the signal of some great mechanical edifice toppling, its sinews stretched to horrible breaking point, the almighty crash as it met bare asphalt… The ground shook beneath their feet, and Rogue knew instinctively that another Sentinel had died.

No one moved. No one wanted to face another scene like the one before them.

"This is bad," Jubilee murmured beneath her breath.

"Y' think?" Logan muttered.

"Let him kill the fuckin' things," Pyro remarked behind her, and:

"Like hell Gambit can pull off something like this," Dominic finished.

Raven said nothing, staring at Rogue as if this were all her fault, or as though she might possess some magical answer to this conundrum – stay, let this play out; or go, and prevent the entire city from being torn apart. And if the latter, go where?

Rogue turned, began to walk.

"Rogue," Raven called after her in a tone she had so often used on her in the past – that authoritative tenor that both inspired and expected submission and respect. This time, however, Rogue found she had none of either to give. She swivelled, only briefly, facing her foster mother's stern countenance with stark defiance.

"_What?_"

Raven was unimpressed by the expression of insubordination, nor did she heed it.

"Where are you going?"

"Where do you think? To find Remy."

And she turned and ran.

Even if they had wanted to follow her she was soon lost once more in the crowd, and she knew they could never have hoped to have catch up with her once she was a part of it. She had no intention of _being_ found by any of them anyway – she knew without a shadow of a doubt that _she_ was the only soul in the entire world who had any leverage with Gambit now. And – it scared her to think of it – she wasn't even sure if she had that.

Equally, she wasn't entirely sure where she could find him. But she knew that seeking out his latest casualty would be a start.

And so she ran in the direction of the second fallen Sentinel, or what she presumed could only be one – it was easy, since almost everyone was running away from that scene, and to find it she only had to go against the tide. But there were others moving with her – those perhaps moved by a morbid curiosity, or a perverse desire to be at the centre of a disaster which they could later recount to spellbound and disbelieving audiences. And there were others still – those who, like her, sought the perpetrator of this crime, but with motives of violence.

Her feet pounded the pavement, a staccato rhythm matched by the hollow panting of her breath, a sound that seemed to fill her ears with a greater clarity than that of the world around her. And then she, and the rest of the group of curious onlookers, stopped when they saw it.

The same implausible image of a still-burning Sentinel in a state of rigor mortis, half crushed by the corner of the building that it had crashed into as it had collapsed. It fizzed and crackled in the flames, its artificial synapses firing in a few final, futile surges of electricity. She saw how he'd done it. Not by exploding the outer shell, but by burning out the automaton's vital innards – its circuitry, silicon chips, motherboards. There was no point in expending time and energy on destroying a husk. It was the insides – the brains – that mattered. Killing at the source, quick and pure efficiency.

Which was, of course, what Sinister was all about.

She didn't need to see more. He wasn't here, that was certain. She turned, and when she turned she saw a group of vigilantes approaching the scene. Friends of Humanity. They were always armed, but now they were more than just ready to kill. They wanted a scapegoat. They were desperate for one. In lieu of this unseen enemy they couldn't find, they wanted mutants. It could only be a mutant responsible for this. Who else would want the Sentinels destroyed?

The irony was, there probably wasn't a single civilian in that city who would not have done exactly that, if they'd had the power.

She would never be sure afterward how it happened. Perhaps a movement, perhaps a sound, perhaps nothing at all but the madness and fear of that day.

There was the crack of the first gunshot, the thud of a body nearby hitting the ground; the sudden flight of those gathered, as if a cat had been let loose amongst pigeons; her being jostled by that flight in the ensuing confusion; the second gunshot, the brushing sweep of the person next to her falling, almost taking her with them; and then the third, final shot, seeming to come from somewhere closer…

And in that moment there was another somebody, stepping out in front of her in a motion that was both sharp and yet subtle, desperate and yet measured…

It was only as that person fell against her that she realised who it was.

Irene, whom she hadn't even known had followed her and the others out of the compound and into the streets. Irene, whom they had left sitting in her room, deep in the grip of her own tortured silence.

At first Rogue couldn't understand what had happened, and, as the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had first gathered, she took the woman in her arms in what she thought at first to be an embrace. It was no embrace. Even as Rogue caught her the old woman continued to fall like a stone, and Rogue took the weight, lowering her to the floor and instinctively knowing, before she saw the blood, that Irene had been hit.

That Irene had taken a bullet in her place.

Rogue gave a sickened cry of realisation as she saw the wound in her foster mother's chest, a scarlet bloom already spreading across the prim white blouse she always seemed to wear.

"Irene!" she gasped, expressing in the name incredulity, horror, helplessness, an almost questioning anger. It was a surreal moment – for the past year the only contact she had had with Irene was mostly through the psyche in her head – an odd kind of relationship, one of bitterness and mistrust, at least from her side. From all these dealings she had begun to form the opinion that Irene had been using her in some way for her own inexplicable ends – and yet here the selfsame woman lay in her arms, flesh and blood in all its weakness, giving it up for her.

She sobbed, even as she understood that perhaps still, even in this, Irene was acting _against_ her and not _for_ her…

"_Why_?" she asked the word she had wondered so often yet had rarely ever spoken aloud. She cradled Irene's face in her hands, and felt, for the first time, the fragility of this woman that had lived through so many countless years, the bony, wasted architecture of a person who had given up so much to them. And despite all that she had lost, _was_ losing, Irene Adler smiled.

"For you, of course, Anna," she murmured with a supreme serenity. "Always for _you_…"

"No," Rogue shook her head hopelessly, her fingers pressing against the bullet wound, trying to stem the well of blood. "Ah don't want _this_…"

"But you have it, Rogue," Irene replied placidly. "You've always had me. Do not think that I have not foreseen this moment. I have prepared for it longer than you can imagine…"

In the distance a different kind of sound filtered in on the warm, sooty air. Screams, as if of infernal beasts writhing in torment. It was impossible not to recognise them. It was the Hounds, shrieking not in the usual way they communicated with one another, but in pain.

Rogue knew what it meant. That where the Sentinels had gone, they were soon to follow.

"How do Ah stop this?" she asked desperately of the old woman, knowing, perhaps cynically, that time was short. There was no reproach in Irene's eyes. To her the question was the expected one; it was the correct one.

"You have the tools, Rogue," she replied gravely. "Now you must use them."

"What tools?" Rogue persisted, thinking how strange it was that even now Irene should speak in riddles…

"The tools Essex gave you… The tools he would _always_ give you… You did right to submit to him, though it took you nearly to hell…"

Rogue looked down at her hand, the one pressed to Irene's chest. The blood was working its way between her fingers, relentless. Her entire hand was painted red.

"What do you mean?" she questioned, knowing how little time there was left; and then it hit her. The answer to her own question. She found she knew exactly what Irene meant. "You mean the psyches, don't you," she murmured in sudden enlightenment. "The ones Essex made me collect for him – Leech, and Sage – right?" The light in Irene's eyes was dimming, and she looked quickly up and down the street, seeing no one but the prone bodies of two others near her, wishing for the first time that Raven were there… "_They're _the ones who can help me fix all this…"

There was no response. Irene's eyelids were drooping, and Rogue shook her gently. Until that moment she never knew what it was to be powerless in the face of death, until she saw Irene Adler's life slip away before her eyes, a life that had gone on so long she had always expected it never to end.

"Dammit, momma, you can't leave me yet," she whispered fiercely, choking back tears that she refused to let fall. "What am Ah s'pposed to _do_ without you?"

"_Live_," Irene spoke the word on a laboured exhalation of breath, as though uttering a prayer, or something sacred. "You cannot imagine, Rogue, how I have fought to make it so. And you know too, dear child, that I am with you." She reached out with a quivering hand and touched Rogue's forehead tenderly, meaningfully. "In _here_. You have _everything_ you need here. Everything lies in your power, for better, for worse…"

Her hands moved with the wandering aimlessness of the blind – the first time in her life that Rogue had seen her move in this way. The wizened fingers touched Rogue's lips, heart, belly; and then she smiled.

"All is as it should be," she stated cryptically as the breath rattled in her throat. "And at last my purpose is done. Forgive me, dear daughter, for all the sorrow I have inflicted upon you in order to reach that purpose. In my quest to make things _right _I have done you many wrongs. Can you forgive me?"

She knew now there was no hope for her. She took Irene's frail hand in hers and held it tight.

"Momma…" she choked and Irene gripped her hand with a final feverish agony.

"_Can you_?" she repeated, and Rogue nodded, realising, even as she did so, that Irene could no longer see – that her power had nothing more to show her but the threshold of death – that she was, for the first time in decades, truly blind. She pressed the old woman's hand to her cheek and said with calm certainty: "Ah forgive you."

And Irene smiled serenely, a sigh escaping her lips as if to lay down a final burden heavier than any other she had carried.

Her features relaxed into an expression of fearless repose, of one well-satisfied that she had reaped what she had sown and could finally lay her head down to rest.

And so Destiny rested in Rogue's arms, the weary cycle of all the years she had lived brought to a close at last.

-oOo-


	14. The Risk

**Disclaimer: **Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

**Rating: **Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author's note:** So did anyone catch the VERY subtle Easter egg in the last chapter? ;)

** - **Thank you SO much for the wonderful review. It's so lovely to hear your well-written thoughts. I do hope you enjoy this chapter too, and that it shows that Irene's death was not in vain. I am flattered that my interpretation of her meant so much to you. I really do think her potential was underused in the comics and there is so much that could still be done with her character... except she's dead in the comics too *sob*. **slightlyxjaded -** Yes, I think one of the driving forces in Irene's life was probably keeping Rogue alive... **Guest -** Thanks so much for sharing your reactions to Chapter 12, and I hope you liked Chapter 13 too! I found your observations that both Sinister and Remy are obsessed with the same woman but for different reasons to be very insightful. I never thought of it that way before, so... Thanks. It gives me some awesome food for thought, and I'm so thrilled you got something out of it so unexpected to me. :) **FF2Addict** - Wow, you read books 1 and 2 as well?! That's so hard core! You're amazing! :D Yeah. Channing Tatum. I dunno. He's just way too meat head for me. And physically completely different to Gambit. I think of Remy as kind of lean and rangy rather than beefcake. But who knows? Maybe they'll surprise us? **Me Voila - **Wow. That really is a nightmare. I have similar dreams, but it's a striving to do something or get somewhere rather than to find someone. I'm glad I managed to evoke that reaction in you (painful thought it may be). And as to how Rogue will endure... Like Irene says, she has tools. ;) **Remy'sRose**** - **Interesting how you mention Rogue and Logan in your review, because the dynamic between them gets very different in this chapter... ;) As for the rest of your questions - hope they get answered satisfactorily here! And thank you so much for your in-depth comments, they make me smile so much! :D

Thanks also go to **RRL24****,** **Warrior-princess1980**; to **jpraner** for all her suggestions, hints, tips and thoughts; to **randirogue**for the read-through; and to all my readers that I really hope are finding something worthwhile in this story. :)

Much love,

-Ludi x

-oOo-

* * *

**: ARROW OF TIME :**

**_PART THREE : ROGUE_  
**

**(14) - The Risk -**

It seemed to Rogue to be the only time she could remember that Raven could find no words to speak.

When they'd found her – pale and bloody and with the old woman still in her arms – Raven had said nothing.

And now, back at the compound, with all the world seeming to float precariously about her, she said nothing still.

There was perhaps little to be said. Rogue herself remained speechless, as they laid Irene's body carefully on her bed, each paying their own silent homage. On that day, as with the Sentinels and the Hounds, there would be no eulogies paid, no requiem sung. The rites of the funeral had long since been abandoned. It was not simply a matter of belief. It was simply that there was no one left to perform them.

When the others left, Raven stayed. Rogue was the last to leave, caught between the feeling that she should go and the urge to comfort her foster mother. She hovered by the bed, uncertain, sensing a gulf between herself and Raven that had never existed before. When at last the older woman looked up at her, it was with a look charged with animosity. She knew then that she was not wanted. She turned and tiptoed from the room, finding it odd that it was only then that she felt tears smart her eyes.

Logan was waiting for her outside.

"For what it's worth," he said quietly, as she shut the door softly behind her. "I'm sorry."

Rogue could only nod. There didn't seem to be any adequate reply to make. She stood as if rooted to the spot.

"You look like shit, Rogue," Logan told her, moving to place a hand on her shoulder. "C'mon – you need to rest."

"Ah can't," she replied. She knew that much.

"You can't run on nothin', stripes," he warned her. "And right now you _got_ nothin'. Rest, build up your strength. When you get up, then we can start doin' somethin' about this."

She knew he was right. She didn't want him to be, but she didn't have the energy to argue. The numbness in her was greater than her power to fight.

"We needed her, Logan," she murmured weakly. "How are any of us supposed t' make sense of this without her?"

"You honestly think she could've helped us with _this_?" Logan asked her soberly, sadly even. "Rogue, if there was anythin' at all she coulda done to help us, she would've left it in her diaries. Or told Raven."

"Raven hates me right now," Rogue muttered dismally.

"Hate you? I don't think so, Rogue. Maybe she's angry with you. For being there for Irene when she wasn't, for Irene taking a bullet in your place. But I don't think she _hates_ you."

That meant sense too. She didn't want it to, but it did.

"Why don't we look at the Diaries then?" she queried, changing tack. Logan looked uncomfortable.

"The last volume's in Irene's room." He indicated with a nod at the door Rogue had just come from. "But seriously, stripes, you ain't gonna find nothin' useful in there. We already looked. Things get to this point and then they go blank."

Rogue blinked at him.

"What?"

"You heard me. Blank. There's nothin'. You could look for yerself, but I don't think Raven would appreciate you rootin' round her room just yet."

True again. And she believed what Logan had told her, it was just so… strange. Why would Irene have stopped? Unless it was _the end_: the thing that Irene had always spoken of as being the great purpose of the Timestream itself, something that had always seemed so monumental and far away to Rogue, a kind of Armageddon. But she felt certain that if that was the case, Irene would have imparted that particular knowledge to her.

The numbness was receding, giving way to an overwhelming tiredness. Rogue passed a hand over her eyes, rubbed her brow with her thumb. The past couple of days she'd been living off nothing more than adrenaline: her mind had already shut down; now her body was protesting as well. Irene's words seemed to swim at the forefront of her vision in a strange fusion of sight and sound, the synathestic effect of traumatic memory.

_Everything lies in your power, for better, for worse…_

The sentence could be read two ways. She wondered which one Irene had intended, or whether it made any difference.

"Rogue," Logan was saying, real concern on his face this time. "Get some sleep. Even if it's just for an hour. And that ain't a request. You need to rest."

Somehow his kindness seemed to cut through the haze of the past few days. Despite thinking it was impossible for her to cry again, she began to weep. Logan, alarmed, put his arms round her awkwardly, as if it was an age since he'd last embraced anyone. Nevertheless she clung to him, fuelled by the terrible intuition that he was the only thing she had left. Irene, Remy, and now Raven – all had left her. She didn't think she could take another loss.

It was when she pulled away slightly that she saw it on his face again – a look that she recognised now was of pained restraint – and it was only inside her own sense of loss that she could understand exactly what it meant.

She understood that he'd lied.

That he felt more for her than either of them had dared to acknowledge.

And he kissed her.

She let him kiss her because she wanted it, because instinct told her he would never let her hurt or be alone, and she needed that reassurance more than anything.

It was pure selfishness.

And when they drew apart she looked him right in the eye and saw that he sensed it also. There was no recrimination in his gaze – it had been an act of selfishness on his part too.

"Ah'm sorry," she told him brokenly. "Ah – Ah can't."

"I know," he answered.

And they never spoke about it again.

-oOo-

She did as Logan suggested and slept, though it was hard to sleep despite her exhaustion. Her mind was feverish, her emotions were in a whirl. She tossed and turned, thinking of Irene lying on that bed in a cold repose, as silent and invisible as she had been all her life, yet _no longer there_… Her presence always implied by the onward march of Time, by the fact that every day was followed by a tomorrow… And now gone. Disappeared without trace.

And then she thought of Raven, her steel grey eyes boring right into her from across the bed, bald hostility in that glare, the accusation of ages held in a single gaze that should have withered Rogue where she stood…

New York city, ablaze, a prison of the dead and dying, and somewhere in the centre of it all Remy LeBeau – Sinister – whoever or whatever he was – causing it. The one man she had given up so much to, who had played all the love she cherished most dearly on a wild gamble and lost. She understood why he'd done it, she even understood the hubris that led him to believe he would win… But he _hadn't _won… And even if he had, she still didn't know if she could forgive him for making her a pawn in his game. That he had played her as surely as he'd played Sinister was starkly clear, and it burned, even if it had been for her, for both of them… in the end it still burned...

Then there were Logan's lips on hers, a stolen kiss because she feared loss and he feared losing her without telling her he'd come to love her…

And everything sucked in under the tide, into the whirlpool of memories, through to that place where everything was tucked away, everything was hidden, her own secret little storehouse, her shoebox of past moments recollected, greasy photos on the wall textured with a thick layer of dust… …

"Rogue."

She looked over her shoulder and saw Remy standing right there behind her, just as she was pinning that last memory onto her note board. She was almost surprised to find herself consciously here. She was in the mansion in her mind, in her old bedroom. She hadn't been here, not for years. Going into the mansion had somehow always seemed forbidden to her – yet here she was, in this facsimile of her old life, in a room of beiges and faint blushed pink, sunlight streaming in through windows that looked down onto the lake below. She was standing by her neatly arranged desk, looking up at the wall in front of her.

The wall was cluttered. Photos were spilling off the noteboard in a torrent, overlapping one another in a confused jumble, a mess of colour penetrated here and there by spots of black and white… Moments of her life played out in still-life, none of it in any coherent order. There were a few from her childhood; more were from her teen years, after her powers had first manifested. A deep splash of colour from her time with the X-Men, counterbalanced by shades of grey from the time immediately thereafter. Soft strains of flushed red and pastels threading their way through the monochrome, and she saw _he_ was in those ones. She looked at them with the giddy feeling of a schoolgirl who draws hearts in the margins of her notebooks along with the name of her beloved. Her heart ached when she realised then how much she missed him.

"Looks interestin'," he commented in a flat voice, and she realised that he was referring to the picture she'd just pinned up – her and Logan in a cacophony of clashing neon colours, like a garish piece of pop art.

"It ain't what you think," she told him evenly, more calmly than she'd thought. Here, in her mind, things seemed clearer. Tranquil, even. All the tumult of the real world a distant echo.

"I ain't thinkin' anyt'ing," he replied in the kind of voice that told her that he was actually thinking quite a lot. She turned to him, reached out to touch the lapels of his coat. Her fingers curled around the fabric, but as usual, there was no sensation associated with the action – perhaps a mere prickling, but that was all.

"Ah wish Ah could explain," she told him sadly, stepping close to him and feeling none of his warmth. "There's so much going on on the outside and Ah'm feelin' so scared and alone… Logan's the only one Ah have right now… It just _happened_…"

"I know what's goin' on outside, _chere_," he answered her after a moment – there was no hardness in his tone, but not much softness either. She looked up at him, surprised.

"How?"

"Irene," he said. "We've been workin' together, Rogue. For a while now, actually. I wanted t' tell you, but never got de chance. Things have been kinda crazy…"

Rogue was silent a moment. This new bit of information explained a lot; and yet it explained next to nothing.

"Irene said I held the tools," she murmured half to herself. "She said they were here." She looked at him again questioningly. "Ah figured she meant Sage and Leech… Did she mean _you _too? And her own psyche? Workin' together?"

There was still no emotion on his face.

"Tools? Mebbe, _chere_. We got some t'ings lined up for you. But it'd take too long to explain – it's better if I show you. It's why I'm here anyways. To take you to de place."

"What place?" she asked him, confused.

"De base. Of operations." And only then did he smile. "Sounds scary, neh? Don't worry – it ain't. You'll see when you get dere."

...

He led her out of her room, down long, plush carpeted corridors that were at once familiar and yet strange for all their untouched stillness. It _felt_ like a house abandoned – as if all its occupants had suddenly upped and left without taking their belongings but a few moments before. All was quiet, yet every room was suffused with a warm glow of sunlight, with the scent of the gardens that had so often filtered through during the summer. It was surreal, yet intensely moving; as she followed Gambit through the well-loved building, she felt a thickness begin to form in her throat.

And then, to her surprise, he stopped in front of Xavier's office and turned to her.

"Here," he said, simply, and pushed the burnished oak door open. He did not enter, but gestured for her to do so. And she did.

She stopped short when she saw who was in there.

There was Irene of course, but not at Xavier's desk as she had expected. The desk was empty, the polished wood shimmering with an almost blinding light in the ray of sunshine that poured in from the window behind it. Irene was instead sitting on one of three sofas arranged in a semicircular pattern about a coffee table right in front of the desk. Rogue remembered Xavier often using this arrangement when the purpose of a meeting had been an informal chat. She realised then how little he had actually used his desk.

Beside Irene sat Rachel, fresh-faced and eager. And on the sofa opposite, Sage and Leech. It was their presence that had caused Rogue to stop short in her tracks. It was the first time she had seen them since their absorption, and here they were, wide awake and fully assimilated, waiting for her expectantly.

Irene saw the astonishment on her face. She smiled faintly and gestured to the one empty sofa.

"Rogue. We've been waiting for you. Please, sit."

She hesitated, not because she was afraid, but because she was confused; taken aback, even, at the calm efficiency with which her own mind had been taken over and made their own.

"Yes – I have taken liberties," Irene spoke, sensing Rogue's thoughts. "Forgive me, my child. There is no other way. Please, sit."

The quiet gravity of her voice impelled Rogue to obey. There was a strangeness to the fact that she had twice begged forgiveness of her daughter in the same day – once in life, and once again in this non-life. Rogue swallowed, moved into the room, and sat slowly at the empty sofa. She heard Remy close the door softly behind him. He did not sit. Instead he went to the window and stared out onto the dream world she had created so long ago as a haven. She could not read his profile. As for the others – they looked at her with a silent expectancy, their expressions watchful. Rachel's with a kind of excited nervousness, Leech's with the wide-eyed artlessness of the child, Sage with a haughty prepossession, as if interested in the proceedings despite the dictates of her own better judgement.

Irene was, as ever, serene.

"You know," Rogue began falteringly, "what's goin' on outside then?"

Irene nodded.

"I've seen it. I know, for example, that my earthly body has perished."

She said it with equanimity, without the impression that it troubled her in the least.

"_Why_?" Rogue asked for what seemed the hundredth time but was only the second that day.

"Because they would have killed you," Irene returned softly. "And that was one thing that I could not allow to happen."

"Couldn't you have found some other way?" she asked desperately.

"Rogue." The word was said with an indulgent smile, as though admonishing a child who ought to know better. "You should know by now that the hardest thing of all is to direct the actions of other people. In a matter of life and death, the only one whose actions you can be sure of is your own. So it was with this. I prepared long for the moment. Part of my preparations included the reason you see me here now."

Rogue thought back on it. That day when she had absorbed her foster mother, thinking of it as nothing more than a demonstration of her power, of what was to be, but that had actually had a double intent; layers of intent, in fact, that Irene had kept hidden.

"So you see," Irene continued plainly, "the fact of my death is one I have long been reconciled to, that causes me little consternation – apart from the grief it has caused you, and to the ones I love."

There was only one other who loved her. Raven. Rogue didn't dare to speak.

"And to be honest," the little old woman added as an afterthought, "I have been alive so long that death should seem a welcome release – that of laying down a great burden."

There was a sombre silence in the room. The other psyches were perhaps contemplating their own mortality – or lack of it, considering their current state of being. It was a complex and surreal question, and naturally Rogue knew they had no time for it.

"You told me Ah had tools," she spoke up, wavering as she remembered what had been one of Irene's final words to her. "Ah'm assumin' _this_ is what you mean."

"Yes," Irene replied simply.

"Then Ah s'ppose," Rogue continued her train of thought, "that all these absorptions – of Remy and Rachel and Leech and Sage – were somethin' you'd pre-planned too."

"Yes."

"So why did you let Remy become—" She stopped short, checking her anger, her eyes flickering up to his shade, who still stood at the window, quiet and expressionless.

"Because I needed him to have his power," Irene explained gently. "I knew what Sinister would do, of course – but contingencies were made. Hence—" And she spread her hands, indicating the room and its contents.

"_What_ power?" Rogue queried on a breath.

"A prodigious power, Rogue. The ability to remake himself. To remake himself _inside Time_."

Rogue heard the words as if over a great divide. The obvious gravity behind them made it even more difficult to understand what they meant.

"And why do you need him to have this power?" she asked slowly, not sure if it was the right question.

"To make things _right_."

"And what exactly is _wrong_? Can't things just _be_?"

"Yes."

"So why can't you _let_ them be?"

"Because I want the end purpose."

"And what is _that_?"

Irene was silent. And Rogue realised that she wasn't entirely sure _what _it was. She understood that Irene had _drawn_ that end purpose. On the very last page of her diary, right at the back. After a slew of blank pages. An image of the Phoenix, rising from the ashes, blazing bright. But what that _meant_ was an answer she didn't even think Irene herself possessed.

"_What is the Phoenix_?" she murmured to herself.

"The end purpose," Irene replied when she had expected none.

"_Why_?"

"To ask that question is to ask the universe itself," Irene returned evenly. "And I cannot answer it."

"So Ah'm a pawn," Rogue came to the only natural conclusion she could.

"We all are."

Rogue bristled. It was hard enough to believe that she was Irene's pawn, let alone the pawn of a great cosmic truth.

"Irene," Remy broke the silence at last. "We don't have much time."

Irene glanced at him with a twist of a smile.

"Your lover is a singular man," she addressed Rogue with a note of admiration and something more. "I had always known it would be so; but I left much to the whims of Fate in letting him out of my sight. It is gratifying to see that, despite this, he has turned out far better than I imagined."

It was pride in her voice. Rogue recognised it.

"So _he_ was your pawn, as much as Ah was?" she questioned.

"In a way." Irene was matter-of-fact. "It was I, of course, who stole him from Sinister during the fall of the Black Womb project. That day, the day that Amanda Mueller destroyed the facility, there was not time to rescue you both. Raven made a decision. She took _you_. But I could not allow the boy to remain in Essex's clutches. I took it upon myself to liberate him; it almost cost me my own life. A blind woman and a baby, escaping a burning building. Raven was livid with me for doing what I did, but I knew I would succeed. And so I did."

She smiled placidly at the memory, as though to congratulate herself on a job well done.

"He needed to be somewhere far away and safe," she continued matter-of-factly. "He needed, moreover, to be somewhere where he would be ingrained with those traits most beneficial to my cause, and most disadvantageous to Sinister's. And lastly, he needed to be somewhere where he would fall in love with the woman who would set in motion a chain of events that would lead him _back_ to Sinister, who would take away the great power he possessed before he would appreciate how to use it. And so I took him to the Thieves Guild. It was a spur of the moment choice, but it seems it was a good one. Jean-Luc LeBeau was exactly the influence he needed; Belladonna Boudreaux exactly the siren to tempt him into a fatal act that would shape much of the course of his life – his actions, his decisions, his emotions, his way of thinking. And of course, all these led him to _you_."

"_Irene_," Remy broke in again, and this time there was emotion in his voice, almost strangled as he tried to hold it down. Again, Irene smiled.

"But that is the past," she finished lightly. "And now we must turn our minds to the future." She looked around her a moment, as if pleased with the little assemblage before her. "Now," she began again, looking back at Rogue, "tell me why you are here."

"You're the one who brought me here," she protested. "Why don't _you_ tell me?"

"Because it is useless for me to give you aid if you do not know what it is you fight."

"Then Ah'm here to fight Remy," Rogue replied impatiently. "Or Sinister. Ah don't know if it makes much difference right now. Essex said he had implanted his genetic memory into Remy. Ah don't even know what that means."

"It means that the two are synthesised, essentially," Sage explained in her deep, rich voice from the sidelines. "All living cells possess a genetic record of the development of the organism that hosts them. It's possible, through epigenetic DNA methylation, to encode the genome of a host with the recorded memory of another organism, without altering the genetic sequence of that host. Such processes are already seen in Nature, acting of their own accord, even in the tiniest of organisms. No doubt Essex discovered a way to reproduce it artificially, and on a much larger scale." She gave an apologetic smile. "Essex was no fool. As his offspring, Gambit was already genetically similar enough for there to be no danger of rejection."

Rogue thought about it. She didn't understand all of the words, but she got the gist of it.

"So Remy is Remy… And Essex too?"

"In a nutshell." Sage nodded. "His own DNA structure remains intact. Whatever he has of Essex's DNA structure has been essentially grafted on. Imprinted, so to speak. Nothing more."

"And nothin' less," Rogue murmured, looking up at Remy, who was again facing the window. "Essex's mind havin' access to Remy's full powers – that ain't somethin' to take lightly."

"Indeed," Sage returned witheringly.

"So how am Ah supposed to stop him?" Rogue asked helplessly. "He's too powerful. He can stop time, for Chrissakes. Out there he's tearin' apart the city, blowin' up Sentinels and settin' fire to Hounds just by _thinkin'_ it! So what if Ah had enough power to stop him? How could Ah even get to him without him killin' me first?"

Remy turned to her then, his gaze penetrating.

"You think he would?"

She knew the idea offended him, was repugnant to him.

"It's a possibility Ah wouldn't like to test," she rejoined quietly.

"I – he – would never hurt you, let alone kill you," he said with grave conviction.

"But Sinister?"

He was quiet. At last Irene spoke up.

"You are important to _Sinister_ too, Rogue," she commented in that same calm tone.

"To a certain point," Rogue conceded after a moment's thought. "Ah was a disappointment to him. When Ah absorbed Leech and Sage," and her eyes flickered over the two briefly, "he wasn't pleased with the process. It was too slow, too… inefficient. He wanted to clone me. He'd even taken a sample of my DNA, but Remy… he destroyed it." She paused, forcing herself to continue. "He wanted to create an army of me, but keep me in stasis, like he had Leech and Sage, so that my clones could imprint me as and when needed. He doesn't need _me_. All he needs is for me to be breathin', the bare minimum, that's it. The point is," she continued on a breath, "Ah could go up to Remy with every intention of stoppin' him and bam, next moment Ah could be comatose. Wouldn't be much of a fair fight."

"Dis ain't Essex we're talkin' about," Remy pointed out unsmilingly. "At least half of me is in dere – maybe more. You're assumin' I want you dead as much as Essex does. And I can tell you now, if dere's a way to keep you livin' and by my side, I'll take it."

He held her gaze, as if that alone could communicate the fact to her.

"All right," she finally agreed. "So let's assume Remy's prepared to sit around and talk. First of all, Ah'm gonna need to find him. And how the hell am Ah even s'pposed to know _where_ he is?"

Rachel put her hand up meekly.

"You do know you have a first-rate telepath here, right?" she interjected. "One who just happens to have been a Hound too? If it's a mutant you want finding, there isn't anyone better. Not to mention which," she added enthusiastically, "I can give you some psionic shielding in case he tries anything, you know, psychic."

"Ah don't think Remy's capable of _that_," Rogue replied with a slight smile. "But thanks all the same, Rae." She took in a deep breath, began again. "Okay. So Ah guess Ah can locate him. Next comes the gettin' past his crazy new powers." Her gaze slid over in Leech's direction. "And it _has_ to be you. There can't be any other way."

"Yes," Irene nodded, casting a glance in Leech's direction; the boy smiled at Rogue shyly. "Leech can inhibit any mutant's ability to access their power, however strong they may be."

"Right," Rogue nodded, business-like. "What's your range?" she asked the boy.

"Ten yards," Remy promptly answered for him. They seemed to have come to some understanding – all pertinent information regarding Leech would come from Remy. She guessed Leech had to trust someone and, from what she had seen in his memories, she was glad that he and Remy had made a connection, even if only in her head.

"That ain't much," she noted wryly. "It ain't as if Remy can't give me the slip or somethin'."

He shrugged.

"It's what you're gonna haveta work with. You'll find a way."

And she figured she'd have to. She looked back at Irene.

"Ah'm guessin' from what you've said that you still need Remy for whatever crazy purpose you're workin' toward. Which means that you don't want me t' kill him."

"No," Irene agreed, and Rogue heaved a sigh of relief.

"Good. Cos Ah don't think Ah could do that." She paused momentarily. "So what exactly do you want me t' do to him?"

"Strip away Sinister's genetic memory," Irene explained, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. "Undo what was done to him and make him whole again. So that he may do what he needs to do."

There was a long silence. Rogue stared at her hands, thinking hard. She knew by now that Irene never asked of her what was impossible, however tempted she might be to think it. Sitting here as she was, in this strange little gathering that had been planned possibly for years in advance, she knew moreover, that the answer to this conundrum could only be in this very room.

"It _has_ to be you," she reasoned, looking up at Sage with sudden enlightenment. "Xavier said that your secondary mutation was the ability to unlock the latent powers of other mutants by manipulatin' their genetic template…"

"That is correct," Sage replied, looking distinctly pleased with herself.

"So that means that you can switch _off_ parts of the code as well as _on_?" Rogue reasoned out loud.

"In theory," came the staid reply.

"_In theory_?"

She didn't like the sound of that.

"I've never tried it before." Sage's tone was matter-of-fact. "Giving a mutant their powers was a thing in itself. Taking them away is something entirely different. Akin to removing a limb, or an organ. I wouldn't have attempted such a procedure unless it was a matter of life and death. Not even for you."

Rogue knew instinctively what she'd meant – that if had she known this ten years ago, she might have been tempted to ask Sage to remove her vampire touch – more so once Remy had come into her life.

"So if _you_ don't know how to use that power, how am _Ah_ s'pposed to?" she asked incredulously. Sage shrugged.

"You'll just have to improvise. At any rate, you don't have time to practice."

Rogue frowned heavily.

"Seems like we're workin' on a lot of what ifs here," she observed gloomily.

"Or a lot of faith," Irene suggested.

"Or a lot of hope," Rachel added. Irene smiled at her. There was meaning in that smile, admiration, affection.

"So Rogue," Irene began, turning back to her, "will that be enough for you? Hope and faith and what ifs?"

She thought about it.

"Do Ah have a choice?" she murmured in reply.

"One always has a choice," Irene rejoined, but Rogue shook her head and said, "The choice Ah have ain't any kinda choice Ah can _make_."

"Of course it isn't," Irene agreed. "But it is a choice just the same."

Rogue drew in a heavy breath, knowing what she was prepared to do and knowing also that they knew she was prepared to do it.

"What about Remy?" she asked, looking up at him still standing by the window. "What's he goin' to do?"

"Give you an edge," he answered for himself this time. "You'll need it, if you're comin' up against me. It might not mean much, but I could gain you a few seconds in a scrap. Might make de difference b'tween life and death."

There was something in his tone, despite the control he'd displayed so far, that told her that he was far from happy about all this, yet was determined to go through with it anyway. What that meant exactly was a mystery to her, but she was beginning to be resigned to not understanding everything.

"So," Irene interrupted softly, "you may be assured of the help of every single person in this room. Here are your tools, Rogue. Will you use them?"

"You know that even if Ah really had a choice the answer would be yes," Rogue returned quietly; and Irene smiled.

"You have my help too," she comforted her. "The help of Destiny. It says that you will succeed."

Remy shot her look then, one that was almost pained. Rogue saw it and wondered. Irene, however, did not notice, or pretended not to. She stood.

"There is little time to lose, Rogue. When you awaken, you must be ready to act without a moment's pause. I – we – will be ready for you at a second's notice should you require it. But do not delay too long, my child. Time is of the essence."

Everyone stood, and, the meeting over, one by one they filed out of the room. Only Remy stood motionless. Again, Irene pretended not to notice. She passed through the door last and shut it behind her, leaving Rogue behind with Gambit.

"You don't want this t' happen," she spoke up quietly when they were finally alone and the sound of the others' footsteps had disappeared. He looked at her, his expression as carefully controlled as ever.

"_Non_."

She didn't understand it.

"Surely you can see there ain't no other way."

His eyes didn't even flicker.

"I know."

"Then _why_?"

And _then_ his eyes flickered.

"De danger you're in, Rogue. Do I need any other reason?"

There was still that look in his eyes. The hardness, tempered with fear. She understood then just how much it had cost him to stand there and listen to everything that had just passed.

"Ah'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" he asked.

"For all _this_. For what happened to you on the outside. If Ah coulda stopped it…"

His smile was wry.

"One t'ing I've learned since gettin' t' know your foster mother, Rogue. Dere are some t'ings dat can't be stopped." Again, that pained look touched his eyes. She felt it as if it were in her very soul. She sensed there was still something he wasn't telling her, but that he wasn't willing to divulge it. That in itself hurt.

"Ah'm sorry 'bout Logan too," she added awkwardly. "Ah just… Ah'm feelin' so alone and scared right now and…"

He reached out, touched her lips with his finger, a featherstroke that shushed her mid-sentence.

"No apologies," he said. "I can't hold anyt'ing against you, especially not now." The corner of his mouth hitched faintly. "I always knew he had a t'ing about you. I can't say I blame him." He halted, and the smile faded. "If t'ings don't turn out de way we've planned, I won't blame you neither, _chere_. You need to be loved, every moment of every day. I trust Logan to give you dat, if not me."

She hushed him, unable to contemplate such a future.

"Nothin' bad's gonna happen," she reassured him, when she badly needed that reassurance herself.

"Really?" He cocked an eyebrow. "From what it sounds like, I ain't gonna be an easy mark. Whatever Irene says, if you need t' kill me, do it, _chere_. Don't hesitate."

His eyes were glowing with the same urgency she'd sensed earlier, as if to impart something of great importance to her. She shook her head.

"Ah can't do that, Remy."

"Why not? You nearly did once. You were prepared to, for Destiny's future, for somet'ing dat was bigger den us. What's changed?"

Again she felt it strange, realising there was so much he'd missed, that this was not the Gambit she had shared so much with over the past year. There were so many things that were impossible to explain. So many words she wished she had said to him on the outside that it would be useless to say here, now.

"Everythin's changed, Remy," she answered in a low voice. "Even after all the hurt, all the pain you've caused me… Even after what happened in Essex's lab… Do yah really think that Ah could take your life?" She sighed, feeling the rawness of the anger she still held for him shift inside her… and underneath, in a place that was dark and warm, she sensed it – glimmers of the tenderness and love she had borne for him. Begging her forgiveness. Jostling for recognition. All too fast and too soon. "Rachel asked me about us once, on the outside," she whispered after a lengthy pause. "About our _feelin's._ And y'know what Ah told her, Remy? That Ah wanted t' be with you. Always." His gaze flickered as she said it, and she continued softly, "There's a part of me that still wants that, Remy. There's a part of me that always will."

There was sadness in his eyes. As if a stalemate had been reached. He reached out and brushed her cheek with his fingertips. She felt only the faintest of touches.

"Den I hope dis crazy plan works," he murmured. "Cos if it doesn't… Dere ain't anyt'ing worse den knowin' dat I could be livin' out dere, willin' to make de decision to hurt you."

"Ah won't let it happen," she assured him. "Ah won't let you become that person. Even if it kills me."

"And if it comes to dat?" he spoke sombrely.

"Then you and Ah… We go out together, sugah. A flame extinguished. You won't feel any pain."

He smiled sadly.

"But _he_ will. When he realises what he's done."

"_If_ he does."

He made no response. His hand dropped from her cheek; he looked like he wanted to say more but consciously refrained from doing so.

"You need t' go back," he said regretfully. "Dere ain't much time to lose."

She nodded, turned to leave. Then, on an impulse, she turned back and pressed her lips against his. There was barely a whisper of sensation, but she drew strength from it nevertheless, and that was all she had wanted. When she pulled away there was a smile on his face, small though _real_.

"Gotcha back, Rogue," he whispered.

"Got yours, Rem," she whispered back, and turned towards the light.

-oOo-

As soon as she opened her eyes she threw back her coverlet and leapt out of bed. First she went to Logan's room, but he was nowhere to be seen. She didn't have time to track him down. Her next choice was Jubilee, who happened to be in her room, hooked up to her laptop with a pair of humongous headphones.

"Jubes," Rogue called to her, poking her head round the door and not getting any response. "_Jubes_!"

Somehow the younger woman heard her. She slid the headphones off her ears and looked back at her.

"Damn, Rogue, you scared the shit outta me! Whassup?"

"Handcuffs," Rogue said quickly. "Do you have any?"

"Handcuffs?" Jubilee looked nonplussed. "Why the hell would I have handcuffs?"

"Ah dunno," Rogue replied impatiently. "Do you know where Ah can find any?"

"You could try the sex shop," Jubilee answered sarcastically. "If you want the pink fluffy variety that is. But somehow I don't think they're the kind of ones you're after." She paused, and her eyes widened. "Wait a minute! Emma has some!"

"What? Where?"

"I don't know! I just saw them once. Hanging round in her room."

That was good enough for Rogue.

"Where in her room?"

Jubilee shrugged.

"In her drawer. She was getting me something, and I saw it. But why do you need—"

But Rogue had already gone.

...

Emma's room had been left untouched since her near-fatal injury. It was difficult not to feel that she was breaking some sort of unspoken taboo in rifling through all her stuff, but Rogue told herself that, had Emma recovered and been out and about, she would've cooperated. Eventually. Luckily, it didn't take long to locate the handcuffs, which were exactly where Jubilee had said they were. It took her a little longer to find the key.

"What are you doing?"

Rogue turned slightly to see St. John in the doorway, looking none too impressed.

"Lookin' for somethin'," she retorted briefly, not wanting to waste time explaining things to _him_.

"Handcuffs? You gotta date you've not told me about?"

"Shut up, Pyro," she threw back at him, finally finding the key under a pile of notes. "This is serious."

"_What's_ serious?" he quizzed her. "Apart from the fact that your boyfriend's up there destroyin' the whole fuckin' city and causin' major anti-mutant riots. You sure know how to pick 'em, Rogue. But if you ever decide to rethink your relationship with Mr. Remy Le-Fuckin'-Badass, _my_ offer still stands. Just sayin'," he added, when she shot him an evil glare.

"For your information," she replied acidly. "I'm goin' to stop him."

He gaped at her sceptically.

"Riiiight. With a pair of handcuffs. Good luck with that, girl."

She stuffed the handcuffs and the key into the pocket of her jacket. She didn't have time to discuss it.

"When you see Logan, tell him what I'm doin'," she said, brushing past him and out into the hallway.

"What? That you're going to stop Gambit with a pair of handcuffs?"

She turned back to him, standing incredulous in the doorway.

"Tell him Ah know exactly what Ah'm doin', and he'd better not try to stop me."

"Right." Pyro gave her a helpless look. "And get myself gutted in the process? _You're_ the one with the death wish, Rogue, not me!"

"Fine!" she shouted back, already on the move again. "Don't tell him! It's probably better that way!"

And the next moment she was gone, leaving Pyro still standing in the doorway, running a hand agitatedly through his strawberry blond hair.

"So if I tell him, I get gutted. And if I don't tell him, I get gutted." He shook his head slowly at the dilemma. "What the hell… It can't be worse than havin' to tell Mystique the same thing."

And off he went.

-oOo-


End file.
